


Sanctis Terram

by TazmainianDevil



Series: Our Time Now [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M, Saints Row - Freeform, Slow Build, lots of swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 06:45:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4819163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TazmainianDevil/pseuds/TazmainianDevil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After escaping the guard when her father was floated, Clarke joined the Sky Saints gang and rose through the ranks, fighting for a better life on the Ark. Seven months later, one hundred delinquents and a stowaway are dropped back down to earth.</p><p>Sequel to Sanctis Caeli</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Falling Back

**Author's Note:**

> This is a direct sequel. So, while it's possible to read it without reading Sanctis Caeli first, it won't make nearly as much sense.

 

 

Clarke woke to the sound of wrenching metal and the feeling of weightlessness.

She started violently and thrashed against the straps restraining her, when a dark hand landed on her leg.

“Welcome back.”

“Wells?”

He was bucked in right next to her. They were both belted firmly into jump seats, sitting across from another row of kids in identical seats and they were weightless because they were falling through space. Back to earth.

She fought down instinctive, clawing panic; focusing on the details.  “Wells why the hell are you here?”

“When I found out they were sending prisoners to the ground I let them catch me.”

“You were supposed to help protect the Saints!”

“Clarke,” He searched her face and sighed. Before he could explain the whole ship lurched and suddenly Clarke could feel the rush of their fall. “What was that?” she breathed.

“The atmosphere.”

A wash of blue light flicked on and the screens set in the walls came to life, displaying Chancellor Jaha’s smiling face. “Prisoners of the Ark here me now; you’ve been given a second chance,” He droned on about a new dawn for humanity for a moment before getting to the point of his little speech. “We have no idea what is waiting for you down there. If we thought you had a better chance we would have sent others. Frankly, were sending you because your crimes have made you expendable.”

“Your dad’s a dick, Wells.” Someone shouted.

Beside her, Wells dropped his head back with a groan. “I know.”

“If however, you do survive,” Thelonius continued. “Then your crimes will be forgiven, your records wiped clean.” Clarke snorted in derision. That was a pack of bullshit and lies if she’d ever heard one. “Your drop site has been chosen carefully; before the last war, Mount Weather was a military base built within a mountain. It was to be stocked with enough non-perishables to sustain three hundred people for up to two years.”

Shouting drew Clarke’s attention away from the video. A boy had unclipped his harness and was floating through the air in lazy circles. He came to rest in front of them. “Look Jaha, your dad got to float me after all,” there were cheers from some of the others. Two more boys followed his example, unhooking themselves to drift up over the crowd.

“You should strap in before the parachutes deploy.” Wells warned

“Get back in your seats if you want to live.”

The floating boy turned his attention to Clarke. “You’re the one they had in solitary for treason.”

“And you’re the asshole who wasted a month of air on an illegal spacewalk.”

“But it was fun,” He smirked. “I’m Finn.”

Clarke rolled her eyes and looked away.

The dropship lurched with a roar and gravity reasserted itself. All three boys went flying, half the ship was screaming.

“The jets should have deployed by now.” Wells shouted over the din.

“Everything on this ship is a hundred years old, right?” Clarke tried to keep her voice light. “Give it a minute.” Wells reached over and took her hand. She gripped back so hard her knuckles turned white.

The jet fired, yanking them into a slower fall only seconds before they stopped with bone jarring force.

For a moment everything was utterly silent.

“No machine hum,” Someone murmured. “That’s a first.”

Clarke fought off her buckles and hurried over to the mess of tubing where the three floating boys had landed. The spacewalker was fine but the others weren’t breathing. One broken neck and a cracked skull. One of them she remembered seeing around the church on factory.

“Still fun?” She spat at Finn.

“The door is on the lower level!”

And who the hell knew what was out there? She leapt for the ladder, shouting. “You can’t just open the door!”

“Hey, just back it up guys.” A deep, impossibly familiar voice was saying.

Halfway down the ladder Clarke stopped with a gasp, looking up to meet Bellamy’s eyes over the heads of a hundred kids. He grinned when he saw her, cocky and blinding. She dropped the rest of the distance and shoved heedlessly through the crowd towards him. Their hands clasped, then he twisted the grip and pulled her in. Clarke wrapped her free arm around his back, feeling him match the movement. “Fuck. Yes!”

“Bellamy?”

They broke apart as Octavia ran forward, looking as stunned as she had seeing space for the first time. Bellamy’s grin turned softer, and he touched her face gently. “Look how big you are.”

Clarke stepped back to give them a moment, then got a better look at him. “Why are you wearing a guard’s uniform?”

“How else was I supposed to get on here? “

“Hey lay off,” Octavia slumped into Bellamy’s side with a plaintive look at Clarke. “I haven’t seen my brother in a year!”

“No one has a brother!”

“That’s the girl they hid in the floor.”

Clarke stiffened and she saw someone in the crowd shift towards the speaker, but Octavia was the one who lunged for him with a snarl.

“Octavia, wait!” Bellamy caught her by the arms before she could move far. “Let’s give them something else to remember you by.”

“Like what?” She demanded.

“Like being the first person on the ground in a hundred years.” He reached out and threw the door switch, drenching them all in blinding sunlight.

Clarke’s first thought was _green_. The ground the plants, even the trees were green with clinging moss. Only the sky was a deep water heavy blue. The colours were so bright it almost hurt to look and Clarke knew instantly exactly how Octavia had felt the night of the dance.

It was miraculous.

She stepped forward and Bellamy’s outstretched arm stopped her, letting Octavia take the first tentative steps down the ramp. Clarke pressed their shoulders together without looking, drinking in the sight of the ground.

Octavia’s boots hit the earth and everyone held their breath.

She threw her arms up and screamed. “We’re back bitches!”

 

* * *

 

 

It was too amazing not to go running around. To touch everything and feel the moss under her fingers, the snap of new leaves, dirt under her nails. Eventually though, Clarke retrieved the map that had been left with the pathetic pile of supplies on the dropship. Supplies might have been an overstatement; besides the topographical map and a few tools, there was a case of guard issue handguns and nothing else. No food, nothing to build a shelter. Mount Weather really was their only option.

Clarke headed out to a ridge nearby, matching landmarks against the map as best she could. Finn, the spacewalker sauntered up to her. “Why so serious? It’s not like we died in a fiery explosion.”

“Tell that to the guys who followed you out of their seats.” She didn’t bother to look around at him.

“You know they talked about you in the skybox. Half the kids in there called you Boss.” 

“Do you see that peak over there?” She interrupted. “That’s Mount Weather. They dropped us on the wrong fucking mountain.” She stalked off, leaving him to whatever fun he was interested in having.

Wells met her back at the dropship with a report on what was still working. Unfortunately, the answer to that was almost nothing. Power was limited and communications were completely dead. He had found the guns though; Clarke could see the shape of one half covered by his jacket. “I put the rest back where they were hidden.” Wells said when he caught her looking.

“Dessert ration says the Ark forgot they were there.” Clarke nodded, and then remembered there were no dessert rations anymore and that was part of their problem. She turned to wave Bellamy over from talking to Octavia, almost hitting the boy with the goggles in the head where he’d come up right behind her. “Hey that looks cool,” He dodged around her am and peered at the map. “What is it?”

“Do you mind?” Wells grabbed him by the arm and steered him backwards.

“Whoa, hey,” Murphy called. “Hand’s off him, he’s with us.” He had almost a dozen boys arranged behind him, only a few of whom Clarke recognized.

“Murphy.” Clarke stepped out from behind Wells, glad that the angle of the ground here meant that she didn’t have to look up at him.

“Clarke Griffin,” He shook his head, smiling thinly. “They tell some good stories about you in skybox.“

“So I’ve heard.”

“You got Atom caught, Koster killed. Brought in Jaha,” He looked Wells over with a sneer. “You know my father, he begged for mercy in the airlock chamber when your father floated him. Monroe said you got canonized and everything. Hard to believe,” His expression turned suspicious. “’Course there’s no purple on the ground.” For an instant Clarke thought he was going to start forward. She shifted her stance, ready to fight.

“You think that means you’re not a Saint?” Bellamy interrupted, stepping between them. Octavia at his shoulder and intimidation clear in the lines of his posture. “You want to drop your flag Murphy? Like everyone we rescued did when shit got tough?” Every Saint in earshot turned towards Bellamy like filings to a magnet, their attention fixed on Murphy. The three Saints in Murphy’s little crew sidestepped subtly away, trying to distance themselves from the challenge.

“Hell no!” He spat. “I’m loyal.”

“Good,” Bellamy nodded. “Then don’t fucking forget that every Saint down here went to lock up rather than surrender.” The crew they’d gathered rumbled in agreement. “And Jaha didn’t get caught because he couldn’t follow instructions.” Murphy made a face but he and Wells gave each other tight, wary nods and the tension in the crowd eased off.

“Bellamy,” Clarke called. He started a little when she said his name.  “We need to get going if we’re going to make it to the Mountain.”

He glanced at her, shocked and then practically recoiled, his face shuttering. “Seriously? You’re just hopping up to follow orders?”

“It’s not about that. We need those supplies,” She insisted.

He bent over to look at the map, tracing the line she’d charted on it with a finger. “It’s too far,” Bellamy said decisively. “Even if we were going, we shouldn’t head out in the middle of the day. That’ll just leave us walking in the dark.”

“So we just waste time around here?”

 “We need to learn the territory,” He rolled up the map and handed it back to her. “Jaha talks a good game but when has he ever had the first clue what was going on? We don’t know what’s out there. Until we do we shouldn’t be planning any fucking day trips.”

“We don’t have any food.” She reminded him.

“We’re in a huge forest,” He threw out his arms expansively. “If there isn’t a single thing to eat in this place we can cook the asshole with the floppy hair.”

“Finn did get people killed,” Clarke made an effort to sound deliberately considering just to see the look on Finn’s face and hear Goggles panic again. “Alright. We set up a camp and scout the area. Best at earth skills divvy up among the scouting parties.”

“Groups of four,” Bellamy agreed, speaking mostly to himself as he surveyed the delinquents. “At minimum. No one should go off alone.”

Clarke caught sight of Finn’s wrist as he slung one arm over goggles kid’s shoulder. “Hey,” She snatched it up, running her fingers over a cracked seam in his tracking bracelet. “Were you trying to take this off?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, this transmits your vital signs to the Ark,” She said slowly, trying very hard to suppress the urge to smack him. “If you take it off they’ll think you’re dead.”

Finn tossed his head and smirked. “Should I care?”

“Hey!” Octavia stepped close to Clarke, looking like she was spoiling for a fight but her challenge was drowned out by the crowd’s approval. Murphy’s posse was flat out cheering; heedless of what that actually meant. One of them crowded Octavia back and Atom materialized behind her before Bellamy could even twitch. Goggles kid was chattering with Finn, a look of admiration on his face as he asked “Can you get mine off too?”

“Life support on the Ark is failing!” Clarke shouted. She was sick to death with posturing boys and keeping secrets. “That’s why we’re down here and not just dead, you morons! They’re running out of air!” The forest was silent. Even the delinquents who hadn’t been interested in their crowd were watching her now. “You take these bracelets off and you’re not just fucking over the guards or the Chancellor. It’s everyone!” She broke off and flung Finn’s limp hand away. “So keep the stupid things on.”

She looked to Bellamy for backup but he only pressed his lips together, the jumping muscle in his jaw betraying how tightly he’d clenched it. Clarke could tell he was right on the edge of shouting fuck it, float ‘em all! Sterling and the others might call her Boss, the Saints she’d lead on the Ark might look to her, but Bellamy was unmatched at turning the crowd in his favour. “Your mom’s still up there,” She reminded him. “All the Saints, Rachel’s daughter; they should have a chance.”

He dropped his head with a sigh, then nodded. “The wristbands stay!” He called to the crew. “Till we manage to make contact.” 

“After that I’ll burn them myself.” Clarke agreed.

 

* * *

 

Bellamy took Murphy with him; Atom murmured something to Octavia and waited for her agreement before heading after them with a nod at Clarke.

Wells headed west with Sterling, Monroe and another girl; leaving Clarke to contemplate a team that would head south. “So, _Boss_ ,” Finn said from over her shoulder, making Clarke start a little; she’d forgotten he was there. “I think I get it now. Which way are we going?”

“You heard the plan,” She said. “We need more than just the two of us.”

He seized Goggles and his friend by the shoulders, steering them over. “Four of us.”

“Five,” Octavia chimed in. “You need more Saints in the group.”

Clarke laughed. “You tell your brother you were joining the gang?”

She stuck out her chin, looking stubborn. From the look on Goggles' face, he found it even more attractive. “You think he can stop me?”

“Not at all,” Clarke strapped on the bag she’d found in the dropship and they fell into step. “I’m just imagining how many people will have to hold him down when you get canonized.”

Octavia laughed, swinging her body around a tree. “Bring him on. I know all of Bell’s weak spots.”

“That I’d like to see,” Clarke let the moment stretch as they walked. “Atom looked after you in lockup?”

“He showed me how to look after myself.” She said shortly, looking braced for Clarke's derision. “Now I don’t need anyone’s help.” 

“Even better.”

Octavia grinned, brilliant and brave. Then the three boys rushed past them, shouting and her smile turned wicked. “I’d take _something_ from Spacewalker though.”

“All yours.” Clarke rolled her eyes, laughing as they gave chase.

 

* * *

 

Octavia worked fast, Clarke would give her that. She dropped back to walk with Goggles, who introduced himself as Jasper, and watched Finn get way too close to tuck a purple flower into the hair over Octavia’s ear. “That,” Jasper declared, not bothering to try and be quiet. “Is game, my friend.”

His friend snorted. “That is poison sumac.”

Octavia flung the offending flower away but Clarke was more interested in the boy. “You could tell that just by looking?”

“He knows everything,” Jasper crowed, slinging an arm around his shoulders. “Between being raised on Agro and recruited by engineering, this man is a genius.”

“You’re just saying that because I know all the fun herbs in the garden,” The boy grinned, adorably and put out his hand. “Monty Green.”

“Wait,” Clarke shook it automatically. “Matteo Green’s kid?”

“Yeah…” He trailed off, turning suspicious. “Is this a Kings thing? Those guys said you were a Saint.”

“Am.” She corrected. “But I knew your dad; we took the Kings down together.”

Monty blinked and his mouth dropped open. “You’re her! Sil Shumway’s girl. Everyone called you Princess.”

“ _Bellamy_ called me Princess.” Clarke cut Finn off, just as he opened his mouth looking delighted.

“Fuck me, you’re _Clarke Griffin_ ,” Monty moved like he was going to smack himself in the head at the realization but Jasper reached over and provided the hand without missing a beat. “Of course you weren’t using your own name,” He gave her an admiring look. “Dad said you were gonna go far. He told me I should watch for you when I got out.”

“He told _me_ if I ended up in skybox to look for you ‘because you were single.” She said slyly. Finn, Jasper and Octavia hollered and Monty went red. “Don’t worry,” Clarke told him. “Roma said she had first dibs.”

That made Jasper fake a swoon. Monty caught him automatically then dropped him in the dirt with a glare.

“Hey,” Finn interrupted. “Look.”

He was bent over a patch of soft earth, staring at what looked to Clarke like nothing, but Finn claimed was deer tracks. He took off through the undergrowth and the rest of them followed, careful not to speak but still probably making more noise than a herd of elephants. Finn held up a hand, as he crouched behind a log, motioning them forward.

The first animal Clarke had ever seen was simultaneously more beautiful and less majestic than she could have imagined. It was enormous, all smooth delicate lines that made Clarke’s fingers itch for charcoal; it was also mottled a mangy grey and chewing ignobly on a berry bush.

“Your brother was right,” She whispered to Octavia. “There is food in the forest.”

“Berries.” Jasper pumped his fist.

“Deer.” Clarke corrected. She pulled the gun she’d taken from the dropship cache out of where she’d kept it hidden under her shirt and jacket, and straightened to draw proper aim. Under her foot a twig snapped and the deer’s head came up.

All five of them recoiled with a yell at the mutation on its head, and the deer bolted for the tree line.

“A hundred years of radiation in action.” Finn laughed, but he looked rattled.

Jasper tried the fist-pump again.  “Berries?”

“Berries.” Octavia nodded.

 

* * *

 

They stripped the bush and filled Clarke’s pack, heading back towards the dropship with red stained mouths. The site was a hive of activity. Kids were hauling in trees that had fallen or broken in the landing, cutting them into clean poles with makeshift tools from ship scrap and lashing them together with electrical cords. Across the clearing that was rapidly forming, Bellamy was staring down a pair of boys who’d been running with Murphy earlier. Clarke edged just close enough to hear them complaining.

“This is pointless,” The bigger one said, indicating the work that was going on. “That chick said the Ark was coming down.”

“Yeah,” His friend agreed. “Why bother?”

“You don’t actually think they’re gonna forgive your crimes?” Bellamy laughed at the blank looks on their faces. “Even if they do, then what? Guys like us, we gonna become model citizens? Get jobs? I hope you like picking up trash.”

“You got a point?” The big one spat.

“No I got a question,” He dropped his voice, making each sentence percussive. Clarke watched the boys lean forward. “They locked you up. Dumped you down here like lab rats to die and you’re gonna just sit around and take it?”

“The hell we are.”

“Well the Ark privileged will be here soon, and they’ll waltz right over us unless we do something.”

The boys exchanged glances, then looked back at Bellamy and Clarke knew they were hooked. “So, what do we do?”

“What they’re doing,” He gestured at the mass of kids busily moving through the open forest. “We’re gonna need walls.”

Bellamy saw her watching as he turned to give them better instructions and stiffened, looking uncomfortable. Clarke waved him off, mouthing ‘later’ and headed back to where the other scavenging teams were congregating.

“Look, Boss!” Sterling swept an arm out proudly, displaying their spoils. Aside from the berries her group had picked, Wells’ team had come back with tubers that looked vaguely like potatoes, some green leafy plants with a savory smell to them and a branch of some red thing, still dripping wet.

“You found water?”

“A river,” Monroe nodded, her hair was wet too. “It felt amazing!”

“And there were fish,” Wells was perched on the dropship ramp, pulling fibrous cables into thin strands. Fishing lines, Clarke realized. “The seaweed is supposed to be good for healing, too.”

“Look at you, Earth Skills.”

“Bell!” Octavia called as her brother rounded the dropship. “We found food!”

“Enough for today, anyway.” Wells added.

Bellamy just caught Octavia with an arm around her shoulders, grinning at her. “Knew you would.” She shoved him off, laughing

“Did your group find anything?”

His smile died away. “No, we didn’t.”

“There are animals.” Clarke assured him. “We can go hunting properly tomorrow.”

“We saw a deer,” Jasper cut Clarke off excitedly sketching a shape in the air that in no way resembled the animal they’d seen. “It was crazy. Clarke went to shoot it and then it looked at us and it had two heads!”

“You tried to shoot it?” Bellamy asked, his eyes roving for her hidden gun.

“And on that note,” Clarke plucked at Bellamy’s sleeve, tipping her head away from the dropship and the workers, towards the forest. “Give us a minute.”

“Clarke,” Wells began, but she cut him off with a shake of her head.

“Go find something useful to do.”

“Check in with Atom or Miller.” Bellamy instructed. “They’re running shit.”

Neither one of them spoke until they reached the tree line and Clarke felt they wouldn’t be overheard. “Walls huh?”

Bellamy didn’t offer an answer. “What’s this about?”

“You armed?”

He lifted the hem of his shirt to reveal the butt of a pistol. Clarke noted absently that he had freckles everywhere. “ _I_ wasn’t in lockup, Princess.” The nickname tacked on unconsciously and Bellamy’s face twisted like he’d bitten his tongue.

“Good,” She said, ignoring the awkward strangeness. “There are guns in the dropship. A whole case. But I don’t want to give them out to anyone we don’t trust.”

“Saints only.” He said without hesitation. “And you need Lieutenants,” He tipped his head towards where Atom, Murphy and a boy with a knit cap on his dark head were leading the construction. “They’ll help but you need your own people if you’re stepping up.”

“Am I stepping up?” Clarke asked. “You seemed like you were running the crew pretty well over there.”

“I’m not running shit.” He snapped. “You’re leading this.”

“And when the Ark comes down? Is whoever’s leading up there going to roll over for that?”

“It won’t be a problem.” He muttered, darkly. “Get some people you trust for it. Thinkers.”

“But not you?” Bellamy said nothing, Clarke rolled her eyes. “I’ve got Wells.”

“He’s fine for the Saints who know him, but more people than Murphy are going to have problems and not everyone is going to want to listen.”

“So we bring them into the gang.”

He laughed in disbelief, looking at her properly for the first time since they’d stepped out onto the ground. “You want to canonize a hundred teenagers?”

“It’s barely forty, come on.” She teased but he didn’t smile back. Clarke sighed, switching tactics. “I meant what I said, about the Ark; we can’t let it die.”

“I wasn’t going to let my mother die.” He spat. “Not after I couldn’t save Octavia.”

“You didn’t get a chance to _try_ for Octavia,” Clarke reminded him. “I was there. Your options were she goes to skybox or you fucking die and she still goes to skybox. And look, now she’s out; first person on the ground, remember?”

A smile ghosted over his face. “That was pretty good.”

“We can give that to the Saints still up there.”

Bellamy’s expression darkened in an instant. “You think it’s that easy? The Ark is just going to let us live and let live? You think they won’t hold families hostage?”

“I think we make their children Saints.” Clarke said firmly. “And we see who caves first.”

“Make them Saints,” He repeated, disbelief clear in his voice.  

“And the hostage situation goes both ways.” She finished. Power over the Ark was crucial. They had to hang on to leverage where they didn’t have numbers.

“They won’t be loyal.”

“You’ll talk them into it. People listen to you.”

His face shuttered “No,” Bellamy turned back to watch the growing walls. “You dig in here and you might have a chance to keep your asses out of the fire when the Ark comes down. If it’s just our people they won’t push too hard. You let every kid on that dropship join the Saints and you’re asking to get fucked over.”

“You don’t think you can do it?”

“I don’t fucking want to do it, Princess.” He stalked off, leaving Clarke staring after him with more questions than answers.

 

* * *

 

A handful of Saints with some caf experience from the Ark stepped up to do something with what the foraging teams had brought back, and by the time they’d lit a bonfire against the encroaching dark there was a fantastic smelling spread of food. They’d dragged the seats out of the dropship and arranged them around the open area between the food and the fire, but Clarke couldn’t bear to take the time to find a seat when she finally filled her scrap metal plate. She parked herself right on the ramp and started eating, only managing to eat slowly because she knew if she gorged herself she’d throw it all up anyways.

From the way the others were eating, it seemed like Clarke wasn’t the only one sick of the bland nutrient paste they served in the skybox. At least most of them had been fed three times a day. Clarke had tracked time some days by the sound of the cellblocks opening for meals; when the guard thought it was a waste to feed someone waiting to be floated.

The amount of food they’d portioned out for everyone didn’t look like much, but the sheer flavor of everything on the ground was almost overwhelming. The greens were crisp and peppery-bitter, the berries almost exploded with juice. The voices of the hundred got louder and brighter as they became giddy on sensation. People she hadn’t seen since they landed came out of the forest, as eager to eat as they had been to avoid working. One of the saints who’d been helping serve shot Clarke a look of disbelief when they crowded in to fill their plates but Clarke waved him off, satiation making her generous.

For the moment they were on earth with full stomachs and life was good.

Her rosy mood trickled away all too quickly as she saw a boy who’d come late to the meal do a double take when Sterling walked past him. “Hey,” he caught Sterling’s jacket, exposing the pistol tucked into his waistband.  “Where did you get a gun?”

Of course Wells had armed his hunting party. Clarke jumped to her feet, cursing under her breath. “Sterling!” She called out, but not fast enough to stop him from saying ‘The dropship.”

The boy abandoned his meal and his friends to head for the ramp. Clarke intercepted him smoothly before his foot touched metal. “You should go back and eat.”

“If he has a weapon, we should all have them.” He protested. Two of his friends rose from their food and came closer.

“Connor?” The girl called. Other heads turned in their direction. Connor had more friends than she’d expected. The Saints watching the food stepped away from their makeshift table.

“There aren’t enough for everyone.” Clarke blocked him against he tried to move around her into the dropship. This time putting a hand on his chest

 “Then why him?” Connor shrugged her off, finally seeming to really notice her. “Who says he gets one?”

“ _I_ say he gets one, because I’ve seen him use one, so I know he won’t shoot himself in the foot,” Clarke said. “And he’s a Saint, so he won’t shoot anyone else in the back.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he’d ask me first.”

From across the haphazard dining space Clarke heard Monroe and the watching Saints start to laugh. Sterling threw her a sloppy salute. “You got it Boss.”

 “Are you people crazy?”

Silence fell around the camp.

“You’re talking like you’re still in gangs,” Connor shouted, turning away from Clarke and back to the assembled kids. “Like any of that matters down here. We were pardoned – you heard Jaha - and you want to go right back to living like criminals?”

“We are criminals.” Bellamy called out from where he was standing in front of the bonfire. At this angle he was practically a shadow, limned in fire with fifty Saints behind him.

“ _You’re_ criminals,” She girl who had called to Connor shouted back; she looked stubborn, but her voice was fearful. “We didn’t do anything.”

“So you were in skybox for the view? Murphy sneered.

“Because of stupid kid stuff,” Connor protested, striding back towards the bulk of the group, as though he could shield the girl from Murphy’s jibe. “Snatching extra dessert rations, messing with the sound system, we’re not dangerous!”

“But they sent you down here to die with us all the same.” Clarke followed him, slowly. She didn’t raise her voice but she made sure it would carry, and more than one of Connor’s little clutch looked angry at the thought.

“It doesn’t matter whether you’re guilty or innocent,” Bellamy answered, not bothering to pay Connor any attention as he fed more wood into the fire. “Your life means nothing to the Ark.”

“They’re our people!” Connor shouted. “When they come down-“ 

Bellamy stopped in his tracks, turning a dangerous look on the kid. “Our people?”

“Come on,” Clarke barely breathed the words, willing Bellamy to step up, bring the hundred in. “You can do this, come on.”

“They can be _your_ people if you want,” Bellamy spread his arms out wide, to encompass the whole crowd of kids.  “But my people are already down. Those people,” He pointed to the sky. “Locked my people up. Those people were ready to kill my mother. They said they were just enforcing the laws; but even the privileged prince knew their laws were bullshit!” He waved to Wells, who crossed his arms, looking like he was daring someone to argue. “Not anymore, not here. Here,” Bellamy caught Clarke’s eyes and she nodded her encouragement but he only turned away.  “We make our own laws. Here, we do whatever the hell we want!”

“Whatever the hell we want!” Murphy roared. The rest of the crowd, Saints and delinquents alike, picked up the call and turned it into a chant, breaking off when thunder rolled across the sky. The heavens opened all at once and the throng held their breath as the rain burst over them. Clarke was soaked to the skin in an instant, the water drumming against her head and shoulders and arms so heavily that for a moment she thought it might beat her to the ground. She gasped with shock and drank the water in. Over the rains fierce rush the hundred were shrieking with delight.

“We should collect this.” Wells called to her.

“Whatever the hell you want.” Clarke smirked back at him as she stepped away to circle the crowd, laughing when he rolled his eyes.

“Not exactly a rallying cry for the Saints.” She shoved at Bellamy’s shoulder. He’d tipped his head up towards the sky, arms out, just feeling the fall of water on his face.

“They like it fine,” He blinked water from his eyes, dark lashes forming spikey clumps. “And it’ll keep them the fuck out of the Saints way.”

“We can do better.”

He shook his head and looked away just in time to catch, Octavia as she threw herself on his back, screaming in happiness. All around her people were dancing and cheering. Clarke decided that the future could wait till morning and lost herself to the wonder of rain. 

 

* * *

 

Rain – it turned out - was less wonderful when everything stayed wet.

They crowded back into the dropship for the night when the storm showed no signs of easing and the cramped quarters and constant noise made everyone sleep deprived and irritated. Fortunately, the next day dawned bright and clear and the Saints set to work with a vengeance; dividing their efforts between the fast growing wall and domed tents cobbled together from sticks, wires and parachute fabric.

Clarke was loading up to join the hunting party when Monty drew her aside.

“I have an idea,” He said hesitantly. Jasper was waiting for them on the second level of the dropship. Looking just as apprehensive as Monty and rubbing at his bare wrist.

“You took your wristband off?” Clarke had cornered him in three steps.

“I thought I could use them to make contact with the Ark!” Monty protested. “I needed to see the inside of one.”

Clarke whirled on him. “And?”

“And it didn’t work.” He admitted.

“It can though,” Jasper piped up.” We just need a live one. Off someone else’s wrist.”

She kept her attention fixed on Monty. “How sure are you?”

He opened his mouth and then closed it again for a moment before answering. “Sixty-five percent.”

“Keep working with the one you have until it’s ninety.” Clarke instructed. “If they think we’re fine they’ll come down either way. No reason to rush them.” Monty and Jasper nodded in unison. “Don’t take off any other bracelets without telling me first.” She added firmly.

She wanted a plan in place before they contacted the Ark. They needed a unified voice or they’d just splinter and be absorbed back into the population - if they weren’t deemed too dangerous and executed anyway.

Bellamy was across camp, hauling a stripped tree off to the wall singlehandedly and yelling orders over one shoulder. “Murphy, get everyone some water.”

She was surprised to see Wells jogging over. “I thought you were going fishing?”

“I sent Sterling and some other kids,“ He shrugged. “Bellamy wanted me on the hunting party so you could stay here.”

“Stay, why?” She’d mentioned wanting to come along yesterday.

“He just said you were staying. I figured it was to help Monty.”

“No chance, I’m-“ She was cut off by the sound of yelling from across the camp and glanced over to see, Connor screaming bloody murder and Murphy with his fly undone. “Is Murphy fucking _peeing_ on that guy?”

“Holy shit.” Wells started across camp to intervene but Clarke pushed past him.

“I am going to kick his ass.”

She was between them in an instant. Shoving Connor back to the ground Clarke spun around, backhanding Murphy hard enough that he actually staggered back a step.  “Knock it off!”

“What?” Murphy laughed, rubbing his red cheek. “He wanted water.”

“You bastard!” Connor leapt for him again, but Atom and Wells caught him before he could get further than off his knees.

“Serves him right for trying to cause trouble for the Saints.” Murphy said, his face growing more earnest as he focused on Clarke. “They’re just leeching off us. We’re taking care of everything and all they do is fucking complain.”

“So let them bitch,” She exclaimed. “You don’t get to dole out punishments because they’re whining!”

“If they’re not with us, they’re against us.” More than one Saint watching nodded in agreement.

“Let me make this really simple.” Clarke stepped in close “You whip it out again for anyone who doesn’t ask and I’ll cut it the fuck off.”

“That goes for every last one of you!” She shouted at the watching crowd. Abandoning the spectacle, Clarke snapped her fingers at Connor. “Get a pack and a weapon. You’re coming hunting.”

“The fuck he is!”

“You wanted then to pull their weight.” Bellamy interrupted, standing at the edge of the camp, arms crossed over his chest and looking particularly intimidating. “Come on, we’re wasting time.”

“Where the fuck were you?” Clarke hissed as she stalked up to him.

“Laughing my ass off,” he replied, not looking at her. “Murphy has a point. We’re carrying them and they don’t listen.”

“They will.” Clarke insisted. “But we sure as fuck aren’t going to win hearts and minds that way.”

“With urine?” Finn asked as he sauntered up to them. “Or Murphy?”

“Both.” Clarke snapped, irritated at the interruption.

Bellamy raised his eyebrows at the new addition to their motley little party but kept up his irritating new habit of saying nothing helpful as they headed off into the woods.

 

* * *

 

 “If you two don’t stop fucking bitching at each other we’re never going to catch anything.” Clarke shouted. Three hours later and they hadn’t found a thing. She was sweltering, starving and sick of listening to Connor and Murphy bait one another while Finn made unhelpful psychoanalyzing comments about her need to be in charge and Wells got to talk to Bellamy at the back of their group and ignore everyone else.

“Yeah, ’cause yelling about it is going to bring all the animals here.” Murphy sneered, but he held up his hands in surrender when Clarke turned her glare on him.

“The psycho won’t stop threatening me,” Connor protested. “Murdering gangbanger.”

“Keep with the sweet talk and I’ll cut that sliver tongue out of your head.” Murphy spat back.

"Not without permission from Mom and Dad, you won’t.” Connor gestured from Clarke to Bellamy. “Do you follow them around because your real parents are dead?”

“Connor!” Clarke snapped. “One more fucking remark and I’ll let him do it.”

“I don’t have to take orders from you.” He looked for an ally in Finn, who was busy discerning something from the foliage, Wells stared back at him impassively, and Bellamy just shrugged, walking past the whole tableaux. “Whatever the hell they want.”

The boy snorted, trying to cover up his wariness with bravado, and shouldered through them into the clearing. Clarke stepped forward to catch his arm, but when his boots hit the grass the world went out from under them.

Clarke’s stomach lurched and she screamed as the sudden drop was stopped short by Bellamy’s grip on her wrist. Her feet kicked helplessly and for a moment she thought he wouldn’t be able to hold her, then his fingers tightened and she could hear the others shouting as they hauled them both up.

She landed half across him on the grass, gasping.

“You okay, Princess?” His hand was warm and reassuringly solid on her back.  

“Yeah,” She hauled herself up. “Guess I owe you one.”

A pained scream drew them both away before he could reply. Clarke edged close to the hole on her hands and knees. “Connor!”

The pit was easily seven feet deep, lined with thick spikes cut from branches. Connor had fallen in sideways, hitting the edge of the hole before slipping the rest of the way, which was all that had saved him. Instead of taking half a dozen spikes right through his torso as Clarke would have if Bellamy hadn’t caught her, he’d been speared twice through the leg and then twisted awkwardly between the spikes and the pit wall – leaving him with a set of matching scrapes down his face and chest but still, remarkably, alive. “Shit,” Clarke swore. “Just hang on Connor; we’re going to get you out.” She unstrapped her backpack and the makeshift one Wells had put together from seatbelts, disassembling it for rope. ”Finn, I need you to get in there and get this on him. The rest of us are going to pull.”

Finn eased himself over the side of the spike pit, tearing his jacket as he tried to find footing. He wrapped the backpack around Connor’s shoulders; tightening the straps across his torso. “Okay.”

“Ready?” Clarke checked her grip on the seatbelt strap, Murphy and Bellamy tight behind her. “Alright, lift!”

The shriek that rose from Connor was almost inhuman, viciously agonized.  

“Shut the fuck up!” Murphy bellowed back through gritted teeth.

The sound died to a pained whimper as they lifted him free of the spikes and in the absence of that noise there was a low rumbling growl. Clarke lifted her head and her grip almost went slack in shock.

There was an animal on the other side of the clearing. Unlike the deer from yesterday, this one was clearly a predator. A feline of some kind and big, with barred fangs at least three inches long. “Murphy,“ Bellamy said, low and urgent. “Shoot it Murphy. Now.”

He dropped the line and Clarke grunted, setting her feet against the extra weight. “Pull!” They yanked, frantically as the cat-thing vanished into the high plants, Murphy trying to track it and putting round after round into the foliage. Connor hit the lip of the hole and Clarke lunged forward to haul him the rest of the way as Finn pushed from below and Bellamy shouted and pulled as hard as he could.

Connor tumbled onto the grass, bleeding heavily. The cat leapt from the bushes with a deafening roar. Clarke threw herself over Connor’s body, bracing for an impact that never came. Instead, two bullets flung the beast back to the ground; one in its head from Murphy and the other through the bottom of its jaw, shot from where Wells had fallen backwards into the grass.

“Holy shit.” Murphy breathed. “What the fuck is that?”

The cat had very nearly landed on Bellamy; it was laid out right next to him, staring with sightless eyes. “Dinner.”

“What the hell is going on?” Finn called plaintively from the pit.

Clarke laughed but made no move to help him, more concerned with digging through her pack for something to bandage Connor’s wounds.

“There’s no way this trap is hundred years old,” Murphy observed as he reached out a hand to pull Finn up. “Someone fucking built that.”

“Someone with opposable thumbs.” Finn added. “We’re not alone down here.”

 

* * *

 


	2. Why We Fight

 

 

The group of them hobbled back to camp as quickly as they could. Wells and Finn hauling a half conscious Connor between them as Clarke tried to keep pressure on his injuries; Murphy and Bellamy carrying the panther. They drew a crowd the moment someone spotted them from the walls and Octavia and Atom met them at the gate. “What happened?” Octavia asked as Atom ran forward to take the weight off Wells.

“Put him in the dropship,” Clarke instructed the boys, turning back to Octavia. “He fell into a trap.”

“A trap for what?”

“For this!” Murphy dropped his end of the parachute they’d been using as a sling and pulled the fabric back to reveal the dead cat. “Tonight we feast!”

Even the kids watching after Connor couldn’t help but cheer at the sight of so much food. Clarke was reluctant to ruin it but she held up her hands for silence anyway. “The trap we found means that there are probably more, and people to make them. No one should go off alone and everyone has to be careful. Stay close to the camp until we know it’s safe.”

“What do you mean, people?” A girl called out, prompting a chorus of confusion from the hundred. Bellamy stepped around Murphy to address the crowd, but another voice cut across the noise.  

“She means that when the last man from the ground died on the Ark,” Finn interrupted as he stepped out of the dropship. “He wasn’t the last grounder.”

There was a moment of pause and then shouts of disbelief rang through the camp. Fear was clear on everyone’s faces.  “It also means we can survive down here. The radiation won’t kill us.” Clarke shot Finn an angry glare. She would have like to break the news in a way that was a little less ominous “Those who are Saints know how to fight. The rest can learn.”

“We need to be ready to defend ourselves,” Bellamy took the opening she left him and spoke up. “Walls, sentries. You want to eat? You help. No exceptions.” Clarke nodded her endorsement and snagged Finn as she headed back to the dropship.

“I need the seaweed Wells brought back, and some water.” She instructed. “And try not to start a panic until we know what the fuck’s going on.”

 

* * *

 

Connor did not look good.

Clarke tried to clean the wounds first, washing them out with boiled water Octavia kept refilling for her, but in the end there was still too much blood seeping out around the tourniquet she’d tied. Casting about the dropship, she pulled a blunt metal scrap out of Monty’s salvage pile. “Candle,” Octavia passed it over and Clarke held the metal in the flame, nodding to Atom and Finn. “Hold him down.” Connor let out one long agonized scream when she touched the hot steel to his leg and then, mercifully, passed out.

Atom, looking green, bolted from the dropship the minute Clarke told him he could let go but Octavia stayed, and when Wells came in they helped her make a poultice from the seaweed he’d collected; binding it tight to the wounds with the cleanest scraps of fabric Clarke could find.

By the time it was done she had blood up to her elbows and was too tired to eat, waving the rest of them off as she scraped together whatever was left of the seaweed for a tea that Connor could take when he woke up.  

The smell of cooking made her stomach growl, and a skewer of meat appeared under her nose. She took the proffered food, nodding her thanks at Bellamy.

“Everyone who worked eats.” He said brusquely, bending to examine Connor

“You were right. There is food in the forest.” She gnawed a piece off the skewer, relishing the heat and the taste of the char. “And it’s not bad.”

“There are people too; we weren’t counting on that.” She hummed in agreement and they watched Connor’s shallow breathing for a moment. “You shouldn’t be wasting your supplies on him.”

Clarke stiffened. “Wells said there was more. I’ll get it tomorrow. We should have it on hand anyway.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

She tossed the empty skewer hard enough that it cracked when it hit the far wall of the dropship. “Maybe you should explain it to me.”

“This,” He gestured at Connor, at the seaweed and the bandages she’d painstakingly torn from their meager fabric supply. “The nurse crap, it has to fucking stop.”

“Giving a shit about people has to stop? That’s a change.”

“For the better.” He muttered, darkly.

“Really? This is better? You used to watch out for everyone.”

“For Saints! This fucker isn’t one of us.”

“Neither was Roma when you helped her,” Clarke reminded him with a sneer. “Or is benevolence strictly limited to your fucking girlfriends.”

“Roma wasn’t trying to lead a crew against us. This asshole is trying to start shit and you’re killing yourself saving his life. What the fuck is the point, Princess?”

“I can’t just let him die.” She insisted.

“Why the fuck not?” A shadow crossed Bellamy’s face when the words left his mouth; a look like he wanted to be sick. Then he set his jaw and it was gone.

“Get out.” Clarke was on her feet before she’d thought about moving, glaring down at him as she pointed towards the hatch. “Get the fuck out of here right now.”

“They’d do the same to us. You heard them, we’re criminals.” Bellamy’s expression twisted into something ugly and accusing. “You want to be the boss but you won’t protect your crew.”

“You brought me in to the Saints, Clarke narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you fucking tell me I didn’t earn it.”

“Shumway brought you in,” He dismissed her. “And you were quick enough to leave.”

“To protect the crew!” She threw his own word back at him; Connor’s body laid out between them the only thing stopping her from getting right in his face.

“And now what are you doing?” He glared down at Connor; his eyes boring holes into the injured boy. “Sometimes people shouldn’t be saved. But you don’t seem to have the balls for that.”

 “I’m sorry,” Clarke’s voice was deceptively calm, as though Connor’s body laid out between them wasn’t the only thing stopping her from getting right in his face.  “Have we fucking _met_?”

Bellamy’s mouth tightened. “You tell me. Not like you introduced yourself.”

The words felt like a slap. “If you’re not going to help you can fuck off.” Clarke turned away, digging through her pack for nothing just so she didn’t have to look at him. She couldn’t get a grip on the straps that held it closed and it took a moment for her to realize it was because she was so angry he hands were shaking.  “I’ll deal with you and whatever your fucking problem is later.”

“Look at him,” He said. Clarke refused to give Bellamy the dignity of her attention, but she glanced over Connor again without thinking. The boy was beaded with sweat and his breathing was labored. “He’s fucking suffering. With two wounds like that he won’t make the night. And the people following him will blame you.”

There was a soft noise of dismay from the hatch. “Is that true?” Octavia asked, peering over from her place on the ladder

“No it’s not fucking true,” Clarke directed her answer only to Octavia. “He lost a lot of blood. But if there was no hope I’d have left him in the forest.”

“We should have,” Bellamy said quietly. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, finally wrenching his eyes away from Connor. “Come on Octavia.” 

She ignored him, pushing past to settle herself at Connor’s other side and taking the cool rag Clarke offered to wipe his brow.

“Octavia,” He repeated, impatient.

“Fuck off Bell, I’m staying to help.” She waved a dismissive hand without looking at him. “Go play with Murphy, you sound just like him.”

Bellamy huffed, but stormed off without arguing further - as much as a person could storm down a ladder. Clarke waited until she could no longer hear the ring of his boots on metal before she turned back to Octavia. “There isn’t much we can do, actually. Just wait.”

Octavia shrugged. “Then we wait.”

 

* * *

 

 

Clarke couldn’t relax. She pretended to doze for a few hours and then insisted Octavia get some sleep; remaining awake to watch the rise and fall of Connor’s chest and turn Bellamy’s words over and over in her head; anger and sadness battling. She would have understood if Bellamy just hadn’t wanted to lead but he seemed content enough to take charge until she brought it to his attention or made a choice he didn’t like. His commitment to isolating the Saints and then standing apart didn’t make any sense.

It was only because she was still up that she heard the whimpers in time to wake Charlotte before they turned to screaming.

“Hey Charlotte, hey. You’re okay,” She whispered, shaking the girl’s shoulders gently. Charlotte came awake with a little hiccoughing gasp and for a moment she just stared at Clarke. “You remember me?”

Charlotte nodded. “Boss.”

“It’s Clarke.”

“Saints call you Boss.” She said mulishly.

Clarke huffed a laugh. “If that’s the way you want it. Come on, the boss says we need some air.”

They stepped out into the cool clear night, settling themselves on the edge of the dropship ramp. Miller nodded at Clarke from the edge of the half-finished wall where he stood on watch, the circle of torchlight casting deep shadows around his eyes. Beside her, Charlotte shivered. But she wasn’t looking at the vaguely sepulchral figure Miller cut in the dark. Her eyes were on the stars.

“Which one’s the Ark?” She asked when Clarke followed her gaze. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

“Nah don’t look at the stars. We know what’s up there already,” Clarke dropped an arm around Charlotte, pointing instead to the lacy shapes the branches cast against the sky. “Look at the treetops, look at the ground. This is a whole new world. Down here we can start again.”

“What if we can’t forget?”

“You shouldn’t forget,” Clarke said firmly. She took a deep breath of air that smelled like growing things instead of stale recyclers and reminded herself there were no walls here to cage her in. “Those things made us who we are. We can’t just let that go. But now we can change things.”

They watched the wind move the branches, the way the darkness muted but couldn’t remove the forests colours. Charlotte’s hitching breaths evened out as she calmed. “Do you really believe that?”

“I know it,” Clarke assured her, with a confidence she didn’t truly feel. She wasn’t backing down and she wasn’t letting go.  “And if the Ark says it’s wrong, then screw them.”

 

* * *

 

She found Bellamy the next morning by following the thunk of throwing knives to where they were waiting for the rest of the hunting parties; Atom passing on Miller’s report as they practiced. There were only Saints in the group, she noted, and Saints were the ones working on the wall. Everyone else seemed to be taking ‘whatever the hell we want’ to heart.

“There’s been no sign of them,” Atom was saying. “But the scouts are still looking.”

“They could be in pound town,” Murphy suggested with a leer. “Lot of that going around recently.”

“You know you can just say having sex,” Wells taunted. “No one’s gonna scold you.”

“Careful _Chancellor_ ,’ Murphy waved his knife threateningly, then tossed it at the target where it hit on its side and then dropped harmlessly to the ground.

“Careful of what?”

Atom ignored them both. “Look Bellamy, people are scared.”

“That’s because Finn’s a fucking idiot. We haven’t seen anyone to be scared of yet. Tell them to keep working on the wall.”

“And what do we say when they ask about Trina and Pascal? They’ve been missing two days.”

“We tell them no one goes off on their own,” Bellamy called. “Anyone who wants to fuck can do it right in the middle of camp and at least entertain the rest of us.”

“Wells,” Clarke, called out from the edge of the target line, unaccountably irritated they were having this debriefing without her. “I need you to show me where the seaweed was.”

Wells flicked his knife at the target. It hit the edge but stuck and he crowed in victory. He lifted his hand to Clarke for a fist bump once he reached her side but she ignored him; keeping her eyes on Bellamy, who was studiously avoiding her gaze. “Connor is healing,” She announced after a moment. “No infection. He should be fine. Just in case you were planning to kill him for me while I was gone.”     

“Don’t tempt me.” Bellamy muttered, just loud enough to carry.

“You don’t like that I saved him?” Clarke kept her face impassive but her tone was biting. “You don’t have to like it. You want to stop it, change it? Go ahead. You were the one who said whatever the hell we want. But you go through me.”

“You think I can’t?” He called over his shoulder.

“I think that would mean looking at me.” She challenged, but he didn’t turn and Clarke snorted “Seems like only one of us is scared.” The sound of Bellamy’s knife lodging deep into a tree was loud as she walked away but Clarke didn’t turn to see if he’d aimed closer to her head.

 

* * *

 

Finn met them in the woods on the way to the river, his eyes sparking with discovery. After a half hour of Wells trying to tease out the reason for her black mood, Clarke was only too happy to shut that down quickly.

“You’re not supposed to be out on your own.”

“You’re not my boss, Boss,” He teased.

“She’s right,” Wells said, loyally. “It’s dangerous out here, even if there aren’t any grounders.”

“Its fine,” Finn groaned in exasperation. “Besides, I found something cool. Come on.”

He reached for Clarke’s arm, but she slid neatly around him without breaking stride. “Listen Finn, when you fall into a pit like Connor, or get attacked by an animal or break your leg tripping down a hill, I’m going to be the one everyone comes running for. We need supplies. So, unless you found a fully stocked clinic in a tree, it’s going to have to wait.” She picked up her pace, leaving the two of them trailing in her wake.

The sound of rushing water made the river easy to find and Clarke’s dark mood lifted instantly at the sight of it. Sunlight casting silver patterns over the ripples and rivulets showed the path of the current; spilling into a wide pool with a surface as smooth and reflective as glass.

Finn whooped and rushed past Clarke where she was frozen on the rocky bank, wading in immediately. “You have to try this,” he called out.

Wells smiled indulgently, throwing himself down onto the stones to pull off his boots. Clarke ignored them both, wading in just far enough to yank over a branch of trailing red weed. “We’re in the middle of something.”

“Come on _Boss_ , we’ve been walking for hours.” Clarke dropped the seaweed in shock as Finn half drenched her with a splash of cold water.

She turned to him with a look that promised instant and terrible death.

“Sorry,” He shifted closer. For a moment she thought he was going to help her with the seaweed, then his eyes flicked to something over her shoulder and she barely had enough time to say “Don’t you dare.” Before Wells pulled her gun from her waistband and Finn grabbed her wrist and they threw her in the water.

Clarke went under for half a breath, and then came up shouting. “I am going to kill both of you. You assholes are going to be – oh.” The sensation of being fully immersed crept over her, cool and strange and wonderful. “Okay, maybe just a minute.”

Finn grinned at her. “You know, He said. “I think I get why you do this whole Saints thing.”

Clarke rolled her eyes, paddling her way back to help Wells at the shore. “Pretty sure you don’t.” She called back.

“It’s all about control, right?” Finn continued, undeterred. He left the river and settled himself onto the bank beside them. “Control over your situation, over people. So you don’t feel helpless.”

Clarke paused under his scrutiny but before she could reply a strange, low note filled the air. “Was that a horn?” They scrambled to rearm and pull on their abandoned packs. The noise came again, echoing off the treetops and a flock of birds rose into the air.

“It sounds like a warning.” Wells said, shoving away the last of the plants.

“And I bet it’s for that.” Finn pointed to a wall of creeping, greenish fog that was billowing through the trees down river, coming right for them.

“We should _not_ get caught in that!” Clarke took off at a run, back towards the dropship.

“We won’t make it,” Wells was hot on her heels. “We need to hide!”

Clarke was brought up short by Finn’s hand on her elbow. “I know where we can go.”

The fog was almost on them by the time Finn stopped running and hit the dirt, scrabbling with both hands at the moss. At first it felt freezing against her skin but after a second it started to burn and Clarke realized it must be some kind of acid. Finn flung back a hidden trapdoor, shouting for her and she dove in without another thought. Wells dropping in behind. Finn pulled the rusted metal shut with a reverberating clang and they all held their breath, waiting to see if the gas would swamp in to choke them.

“We’re safe.” Wells breathed a sigh of relief, collapsing against one of the oddly angled walls and looking around. “Where are we?”

“I think,” Finn was creeping towards the far end of the space, wiping off a clear panel that looked out onto nothing but earth. “That it was an automobile.”

“Underground?” Clarke looked at him skeptically.

“Well, it probably wasn’t always buried here.”

Wells rubbed at the hatch they’d come through with one sleeve, clearing the grime from the glass to look out at a world gone opaque green. “Do you think the others are alright?”

“They’ll be fine inside the dropship,” Clarke assured him. “Bellamy –“ She cut herself off. Twenty-four hours ago she would have sworn she knew exactly what Bellamy would do.  Now she wasn’t certain and the hesitance burned at her.

“Bellamy will watch out for them.” Wells didn’t seem to share her trepidation.

“Hey look,” Finn returned from his explorations with a bottle still full of amber liquid.

“Is that booze?” Clarke laughed in surprise.

Finn took a long pull, coughed and made a face. “Whiskey, I think.”

Clarke grabbed at it until he handed it off.  She gave it a suspicious sniff and then a tiny sip. It burned like liquid fire all the way down her throat. “Better than what they made on Agro station.” She offered it to Wells.

“Alcohol is toxic.” He said hesitantly.

Finn booed and Clarke made a face. “Awe Wells, don’t tell me the Saints stopped having parties after I went to lock up.” He looked unhappy but Clarke didn’t let that dissuade her. “It’s not like we can go anywhere yet.”

“So your plan is to hang out in an old car and drink?”

She shrugged. “Seems like it.”

“You make the plans.” He muttered in agreement, still looking grumpy about it.

“And you keep us out of trouble,” She agreed. “That’s why we work so well.”

“Then you run off and join a gang. Give me that,” He snatched the bottle and took a long belt. “That’s vile.” He exclaimed once he’d stopped choking.

“Completely.” Clarke agreed, and stole it back for another sip.

 

Three hours later it was dark outside, the fog showed no signs of letting up, and Clarke was drunk.

“You’re wrong,” She said to Finn for the third time in two minutes. He was explaining some kind of Mecha station card game to Wells and hadn’t been listening so she was getting progressively louder. “You’re wrong about why the Saints.” She clarified. The boys fell silent, looking at her. “It’s not about control.”

“Then why do it?” Finn settled back, taking another swig from the bottle then gesturing between her and Wells. It was half empty now, Clarke noted. They should probably be saving it for something. “You’re not, you don’t seem murderous.”

Wells snorted a laugh. “I’m pretty murderous.” Clarke informed him seriously. “I just like plans better.”

Finn arched a skeptical eyebrow at Wells.

“Don’t look at me,” He shrugged. “She makes the plans.”

“And you get us out of trouble,” She repeated the mantra, smiling at him, then blinked back towards Finn. “There, that’s why.”

“Jaha?”

“Loyalty!” Clarke exclaimed. “It’s not a fuckin’ control fantasy. The Saints aren’t about crime or violence or sticking it to the Chancellor. I mean, that’s all lots of fun but loyalty is the point. People who always have your back. “

Wells was smiling, Finn looked thoughtful. “Or it was the point on the Ark,” Clarke continued, kneeling up to swipe the bottle from Finn’s lax grip. “Now I might as well go live in the woods since Bellamy can’t fucking stand me anymore.”

“He’s a jerk.” Finn declared, amicably.

“He’s not though. Or he wasn’t, I thought things were fine but now he’s like a whole other person,” She took another sip and didn’t bother to conceal her shudder. “One who hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you.” Wells took the bottle from her. “It’s just that after you left –“

“You two keep fucking saying that. I ‘left’ like I fucking ran off to something better. Like I didn’t give myself up and spend the last seven months alone in a tiny room waiting to die!” Her shout echoed off the rusted metal of the van. The boys stared at her. Clarke stuck her hand out. “Give me the fucking bottle.”

“Clarke,” Wells passed the whiskey to Finn instead “It’s not that we don’t get it. All the Saints know you saved us. But after that you were gone. Red was gone, that woman - Salujah was gone, Shumway never came back.”

“Shumway was the one who sold us out.” Clarke added absently. “I didn’t get the chance to tell anyone. I forgot no one else knew.”

“Oh fuck,” Wells slid further down the car wall and put a hand over his face. “That’s so much worse. But the point,” He lifted the other arm in the air to gesticulate without looking. “The point is that it was just Bellamy. And the guard knew everyone’s name, Clarke. There was no access to anything. No ration tickets, no caf entrance, no jobs, no going back to Factory station. We almost starved.” He dropped both hands, staring up at the welding lines in the rusting metal celling.

 “We had to steal everything and we lost so many people. That’s why more than half the dropship is Saints. That’s why I went back to Alpha. At least there I could smuggle them things. Got caught for it, in the end,” His head lolled to the side, looking back at Clarke. “It was tough for Bellamy. You make the plans remember?”

“And you get us out of trouble.” She recited.

“Bellamy keeps everyone together. Well, and kicks a lot of ass,” Wells amended. “But it was just him. Alone. Seven months of watching the Saints crumble, seeing people get floated.”

“So he thinks it’s my fault.”

Wells considered her statement for so long that Clarke thought he’d fallen asleep. “I think, when he looks at you, he sees all the ways you could have done it better. You make a plan, or save someone and it’s just that much worse because he couldn’t. He was useless without you.”

“Well,” Clarke said at last. “That’s fucking bullshit.”

Wells’ eyes went very wide. “I _know_ , right?”

“You two are just,” Finn stole the bottle back and drained a quarter of it in one long pull. “So much fun.”

“What it is with you and fun?” They demanded in unison.

 

* * *

 

By the time the sun peeked into their hiding place, the acid fog was gone. Clarke levered herself out of the sunken car and tried to get her bearings. From what she could tell, they weren’t more than an hour from the dropship. Wells climbed out last, offering the whiskey up first.

“Leave that here,’ Clarke groaned. Her mouth tasted like something had died in it.

“Disinfectant.” He waved it again. “Might come in handy.”

She had just loaded the bottle in to her backpack when the stillness of the forest was broken by a scream.

They bolted through the woods after the sound and Clarke was the first to catch sight of Charlotte, staring in horror at the body on the forest floor.

“Son of a bitch,” Wells breathed. “Atom.”

Atoms skin was all pustules and burns; he could barely form words except to beg. “Kill me,” He repeated over and over. “Kill me.”

Bellamy had the knife poised over his throat but he wasn’t moving.

Clarke was on her knees next to Bellamy before she’d even thought about it. “I heard the screams.”

“Charlotte found him,” He said, halting. “I sent her back to camp.”

There was nothing they could do for Atom. The whole river full of seaweed wouldn’t make as much as a dent on an injury like this. He was crying in agony. She shook her head.

Bellamy looked broken. He looked from Clarke to the knife still ready in his hands. “I gave Charlotte my gun.”

“Okay,” Clarke turned back to Atom; she smiled and kept smiling no matter how tremulous it felt on her face. “I’m gonna help you, alright?”

With one hand she smoothed over his hair, soothing. As she drew the gun from her waistband with the other, she started to hum. She sang same lullaby that Rachel had hummed to herself as air leached out of the vent room back on the Ark, and hoped that it would bring Atom peace. Then she pressed the barrel right against his temple.

The sound was deafening in the still woods.

 

* * *

 

Monty and Miller met them at the entrance to the camp. The latter worried but stoic, the former breathlessly anxious, both trying to give a status report at the same time.

“How many made it?” Clarke demanded.

“Everyone,” Monty assured her. “We’re all fine.” He smiled, but Miller put a hand on his arm and nodded at the hastily constructed stretcher Bellamy and Wells were carrying between them.

Octavia came running up before they could explain. “I thought you might have wounded,” She said to Clarke, shifting to get a better view of the stretcher. “Connor’s up now and I kept your space free. Is it serious?”

“O, don’t” Bellamy tried to pull her back but it was too late.

Octavia flipped the jacket off Atom’s face and went very still. Her skin drained of colour but her expression remained frozen until she looked up at them with fury in her eyes. “He was shot.”

“I shot him.” Clarke didn’t try to dissemble.

“Why?” The question was a rasped, angry demand.

“There was no hope,”

Octavia stared at her for a long moment then nodded tightly and bent to press a kiss against Atom’s hair before she covered him again. “There’s a place nearby,” She said once she’d straightened. “A field with butterflies. We should take him there.”

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t until they arrived - standing in awe for a moment at the luminous trees - that Clarke realized she wasn’t sure what to do.

Life on the Ark was cheap. Funerals were perfunctory and sanitized, held mostly for the immediate family.  The dead, executed and natural alike, sent out into the vacuum of space without wasting materials on any kind of receptacle. She’d read about burials  - it was possible that someone had buried the two boys who’d died when the dropship landed – but they didn’t have the means to build a coffin, and they didn’t have extra fabric for a shroud. Still, Octavia’s solemn grief had spread to the rest of them and it seemed necessary somehow to have a ritual.

She looked at Bellamy, helplessly. “Wood,” He called out to the hundred who had followed them, his voice hoarse. “Bring wood.”

With so many hands to help the pyre grew quickly. Murphy, Miller and Bellamy lifted Atom’s body onto it and Jasper passed over a torch. “First of the Ark in a century to die on the ground,” Bellamy said, touching the flame to wood.  “In peace may you leave the shore, in love may you fine the next; safe passage on your travels, until your final journey,”

He cut off the traditional exhortation to the ground. A few of the crowd stumbled over it but Clarke caught some fleeting smiles in the throng at the reminder of what it meant that they’d returned to earth.  “May we meet again.”

Octavia looked about in surprise when the rest of them joined in the blessing that passed for funeral rites and Clarke realized she’d never heard it before. Atom was her first loss.

“We remember Atom as he was, who he was: a warrior, a guardian, and a friend. He died a Saint. Blood in, blood out.”

“Blood in, blood out.” The canonized repeated.

Clarke raised her fist in salute with the others.

People drifted back to the dropship as flames completely consumed the pyre. Octavia remained watching, a luminous blue butterfly in her hair. “I’m sorry.” Clarke said after a long moment.

“We wouldn’t have lasted long on the Ark anyway,” Octavia shrugged, wiping at her tears roughly. “Might not even have made it past Review. At least this way he got to see the ground, right?”

“Yeah.” Clarke pressed a hand to her shoulder and stepped away, allowing her space to say goodbye.

By the time they returned to camp the bonfire was lit and the Saints were teaching the rest of the delinquents their own method of farewell.

All too often mourning had been wrapped up with the flush of victory, and they had learned quickly to take the good and bad together, turning instead to celebrate life. “So here he is,” Roma, dark hair shining in the firelight, was telling a story to a group of Saints crowded close. She waggled her brows at Clarke when their eyes met but didn’t pause the tale. “And Atom just leans over and says ‘ _You could always use an air compressor’_!” The whole crowd burst into uproarious laughter. “You hardly ever heard the boy speak, but when he did, well,”

“He was a son of a bitch.” Someone said emphatically when Roma’s voice faltered, prompting another round of chuckles.

Not everyone was joining in, but the sound of laughter seemed to lift the mood of even those on the fringes of camp. For a while Clarke was happy to join in, smiling in all the right places, but she hadn’t known Atom that well; eventually, after yet another toast, she drifted, making a slow circle of the camp. She caught sight of Connor propped up near the dropship, his leg stretched out and supported by a pair of jump seats. Clarke looked him over, checking the visible bandage for any signs of blood. “You shouldn’t be up.” She admonished without any heat behind the words. “You almost died yesterday.”

“My savior.” Even in the firelight his dark skin was a little grey, but he gave her a wry smile.

“Seriously, don’t fucking die,” Clarke said again, slumping into the empty seat next to him. “It’s been a shitty day and I do not have the patience for it.”

Connor grimaced “I’ll try not to die tomorrow too if that’s okay.”

“You better not,” She instructed. “Or I’ll bring you back to life and kill you myself.”

They watched the group for a moment, laughing and talking, finding joy in the spaces between their troubles. “You just get together and tell stories?” Connor asked eventually.

“Usually there’s drinking,” She explained. “But it helps to remember the good things when life is…”

“Nasty, brutish and short.” Bellamy grunted as he came to join them, avoiding the crowd and the fire.

Clarke glanced up at him, surprised. He didn’t look away this time and his expression remained neutral, though the ticking muscle in his jaw betrayed his discomfort. “They’re telling the goddamn unity day story.”

She nodded her understanding. “Nothing shows how loyal he was to you like that one.”

“If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have fucking been here.” She could practically see the guilt on him now that Wells had pointed it out. “I shouldn’t have asked him to.”

Clarke didn’t feel the need to point out that Bellamy _hadn’t_ asked. “He was your crew because he wanted to be.” Atom had been loyal but not blind. “And he’d have said it was worth it.”

“Stupid bastard deserved better.”

“Atom and I talked a little on skybox you know.” Connor offered. “When he wasn’t following Octavia around. Just the basics. ’What are you in for’, stuff like that.  I never understood it. Why he’d gone to lock up just because you’d said so. I think I get it now.” He turned to Bellamy. “It’s ‘cause you gave a shit.”

“We try.” Bellamy smirked, bitter and grieving. “For all the good it does.”

Connor watched the Saints scattered around the bonfire. Sterling was telling some story that involved Atom distracting a guard and required wild, obscene looking gestures. Octavia’s eyes were still red, but she was laughing. “Seems like it might be worth it,” He said, considering. “Joining up.”

“You won’t like our initiation.” Clarke warned him.

“Is anyone going to pee on me?”

“Not intentionally.”

“Then it can’t be that bad.” He levered himself painfully to his feet and started picking his way back to the dropship. “Be careful!” Clarke shouted after him without looking around to watch him go.

Bellamy stole Connor’s vacated seat, ignoring Clarke when she twisted to drape her feet over the chair between them.  “Was this your plan?” He asked after they’d sat in silence for a while. “Rescue him, get him to join?”

A surprised laugh punched its way out of her. “ _Fuck_ no. Bellamy, I have no plan.”

“Then how do you always manage to make this shit work?”

Clarke looked over at him – she thought of what Wells had told her, about what had happened to the Saints, and about all the insane, angry, doubting melodrama Bellamy had put her through since they’d landed - then reached up and smacked him as hard as she could across the back of his head. “’Cause you’re doing it with me, you asshole!”

He was gaping at her. “You fucking hit me.”

“I’ll keep doing it if you ever pull that low-blow shit from yesterday again.”

“Fuck you, Princess.” He groused, but there was no heat in it and some of the tension had bled from his shoulders. He mumbled something Clarke didn’t catch.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

She jabbed him with her foot. “What?” She repeated a little louder, nudging him again, and then faster and faster, until he caught her ankle, stilling her poking toes.

“I was out of line, okay,” He said, more to her foot than the rest of her. “Yesterday. I was out of line.”

“Was that an apology?” Clarke gasped in shock that was only mostly feigned.

“No,” He said instantly; knocking her leg from the arm of the jump seat and back into the dirt.  “And we’re still not letting Connor’s idiots in the gang.”

Clarke groaned, head falling back in irritation. “Why not?”

“We don’t need to. They still listen.”

“When they feel like it.” She reminded him. He said nothing and she considered a knot of kids who were keeping themselves carefully apart from the Saints. They looked more unhappy than the people who were actually mourning, and certainly more afraid. “Do you really want them dead?”

“I want Octavia safe,” Bellamy said with the air words that had become mantra. “Her and you.” He glanced at Clarke and cleared his throat. “Besides, we outnumber them if they try to start shit. What’s the worst that could happen?”

The sound of a gunshot rocked the camp. Someone was screaming in the woods, high, female and terrified.

“You had to fucking say it didn’t you!” Clarke shouted. “Grounders?”

“Get torches!” Bellamy called to the crew as they ran for the forest.

Before they could even reach the tree line, Wells staggered into the light, roaring in pain and rage. He was covered in blood from a wound that had pulped the side of his face above one cheek. He took two steps forward and then keeled over, losing his death-grip on the barrel of a handgun and dragging along a screaming, crying Charlotte.

 

* * *

 


	3. Blood In

 

 

The bullet had creased a chunk out of Wells face so deep that Clarke could see a sliver of white bone through the blood as she bent over him, screaming instructions for light and water to the Saints who’d carried him into the dropship.

Gingerly she touched the ridge of his brow around the wound and felt the bone shift, nauseatingly under her fingers. Wells came awake with a howl of pain and started to thrash.

“Help me hold him!” Clarke cried and didn’t see whose hands clamped down. “It’s okay Wells. Look at me, look at me. You’re going to be fine.”

“Clarke?” it was more of a cry than a question.

“I know it hurts. But you have to stay still for me okay. Stay still. Your eye socket is broken.”

She looked up to Octavia and Jasper bending over her. “I need the bottle that was in my pack, and the seaweed. Bandages, cold water, and anything like a needle and thread.”

Time passed in a blur of blood and pain.

Whoever had tried to kill Wells must have pressed the barrel of the gun right against the side of his head. Whether he’d dodged or moved or knocked away the weapon, Clarke wasn’t sure but the shot had been at such close range that the damage was more of a burn than a cut and the bleeding stopped fairly quickly. Clarke cleaned it out with the whiskey, ignoring the way his screaming made her hands shake, then packed seaweed poultice in, wrapping bandages around it.

There was nothing she could do for the break except try to keep the swelling down and pray it was only a fracture. She soaked a cloth in the cool water and kept it pressed to Wells’ swollen eye as she roused him long enough to make him drink two cups of seaweed tea.

His body gave out after that. Finally slipping from half aware panic into real, proper unconsciousness.

Clarke pressed her head against his chest and listened to his heartbeat for a long time.

Then she went to find out what the hell was going on.

 

Dawn light was creeping through the treetops and the hundred were gathered in tense little knots through the camp, the majority of them keeping close to one of the bigger tents. They parted for her easily as she walked up but Clarke couldn’t say whether that was because of the Saints in the group, the expression on her face, or the fact that she was covered in blood.

Bellamy was inside, pacing in front of Murphy, who stood guarding a despondent looking Charlotte. She was huddled in a jump seat, her face streaked with tears.

Octavia pushed off from where she’d been leaning against the table. “Wells?” She voiced the question on everyone’s face as they turned to Clarke.

“I don’t know,” She sighed. “The wound isn’t too bad but if he needs surgery for the broken bones we can’t give it to him, and there may be other damage.” She took a deep breath, pushing aside her fear for Wells in favour of the anger that was bubbling just underneath. “I want them dead.”

Murphy barked out a laugh but Clarke didn’t let him deter her. “Charlotte did you see the grounders who did this? How did they get so close to camp?”

Bellamy opened his mouth but Murphy beat him to the punch. “It wasn’t grounders.”

“Then who the fuck did this?”

“Our little butcher here wanted to do away with the chancellor.” Murphy sneered, spitting at Charlotte’s feet. The girl started to cry again.

“Charlotte,” Clarke swallowed, betrayal stinging through her like salt in a wound. When she managed to speak her voice was a croak. “Why?”

“Wells looks like his father,” Bellamy said by way of explanation. “Charlotte took exception to that.”

 “I was just trying to slay my demons, like you taught me.” She wailed.

Octavia looked at her brother, appalled. “What the hell is she talking about?

“She misunderstood me,” Bellamy said; looking torn between guilt and frustration he turned back to the girl. “Charlotte that was _not_ what I meant.”

“What the hell is going on?” Someone bellowed from outside the tent.

“No one say a fucking word.” He said instantly. All eyes in the tent snapped to him.

“What the fuck?” Murphy practically shouted.

Clarke shot him a look but she couldn’t help but agree. “Bellamy, they need to know what happened. That it wasn’t the grounders.”

“And what then?” He demanded. “You wanted them Saints. Fear of the grounders will make that happen.”

“That’s not a good enough reason!” Clarke said. “Fear isn’t loyalty.”

“And she needs to be punished.” Murphy’s words silenced the tent. “She killed one of us. She floats.”

For a second - a long, awful second, which felt like a year – Clarke wanted to give the order. She didn’t care what it would make her; she didn’t care if Bellamy would never forgive her. She wanted Charlotte dead for what she’d done to Wells. Then Clarke forced the feeling back, logic swamping in to take its place. And when she looked up at Bellamy he sagged in unaccountable relief; as though he could read in her eyes what she had decided. “No.” She declared.

“We’re not killing her.” Bellamy was quick to agree.

 “What the fuck is wrong with you two?” Murphy waved a hand wildly in Charlotte’s direction. “She tried to kill him! I might hate Jaha’s fucking guts but he’s one of us. You were ready to slaughter the grounders a minute ago; now you’re gonna let a killer Saint walk?”

“I’m not a Saint.” Charlotte cried.

Clarke pinned her with a glare. “You don’t get to speak.”

“But I’m not!” Her voice was growing less panicked and more certain with every word. She pointed to Bellamy. “You never let me join; you said we could do whatever we want.”

“And you chose to be a killer.” Clarke fired back at her. “You tried to kill him, Charlotte. Do you understand what that means?”

“Clarke.” Bellamy used her name. She’d never heard him say her name before. The sound of it from his mouth was striking, remarkable. And the fact that he’d done it to sway her made her livid.

 “My best friend might be dying in that ship. She was ready to end his life for no reason, no reason at all!”

“She’s just a kid.” Of course she was. All of them fucking were. But Charlotte was the youngest on the dropship. Barely eleven.

“There are still consequences,” Octavia said before Clarke could speak “Bell has a point about keeping things secret. But we can’t let this go.”

“She’s only little girl.” Bellamy protested

“That doesn’t make it okay!” Octavia crossed her arms over her chest in a movement that looked exactly like him.

Clarke glanced over her shoulder to the door of the tent, thinking of the restless crowd beyond it. “Whatever we do we can’t keep this secret.”

“We’re not keeping it secret,” Murphy declared. “If you want those people out there to fall in line the Saints need to show our strength. What we do to traitors.”

“We’re not murdering a child.”

“So we let her murder us?”

“We need to tell everyone what happened, then decide what to do.”

“We know what to _do_.”

“Shut up!” Charlotte made a break for the door, twisting and fighting like an animal when Bellamy grabbed at her. “Let me go!”

He hauled her back with both arms around her torso, trying to keep hold around her struggles. “Hey, I’m trying to help you.”

“Well stop!” She kicked him hard in the stomach and stumbled through the tent wall before any of them could reach her. “I did it!” She screamed.

The camp stopped.

“There were no grounders. I shot Wells!”

Murphy shoved past them out of the tent, seizing Charlotte by the upper arm. “That’s right; we’ve got ourselves a killer.”

Bellamy groaned. “Any bright ideas, speak up.” Clarke looked at the crowd gathered outside the tent, then back to Bellamy, helpless. “ _Now_ you have nothing.”

“Oh fuck you. It was never going to stay secret.” She cast about for a moment, as though the tent might offer an answer. “Can we get out in front of this?”

“Not if we don’t fucking stop Murphy.” He gestured out into the sunlight and the still stunned crowd. “Maybe. I can try.”

“Do it,” She nodded. “I have an idea.”

He caught her arm before she could move. “You need to be here for this.”

“Buy me two minutes.” Clarke shrugged free and dashed for the dropship.

 

If she could rouse Wells, just for long enough to dramatically stop her from having to execute Charlotte, they might be able to salvage this without backing anyone in to a corner. Clarke burst in to the upper level of the dropship so fast the hatch banged against the floor and Monty – who was bent over Jasper’s broken wristband in the corner he’d claimed as lab space -  jumped at the sound. This woke Jasper, who’d been tasked with watching over Wells and had clearly been giving it his all.

“What's wrong?” He asked sleepily.

Clarke bent over Wells putting a hand to his brow. He was warm, but not hot enough to be running a fever; his breathing was shallow but even. He didn’t stir under her hand. “I need him.” She shook his shoulder gently. “Wells?” Come on.”

“He’s out,” Jasper reminded her. “But you said yourself he’ll get better.”

“Just not in time to help me save Charlotte.”

“Charlotte?” Monty scrambled over, ready to offer assistance.

“She shot him.”

“Why?”

“Does it matter?” Clarke shouted, glaring over at Jasper.

“No, no I just thought-“

“She almost killed my best friend,” The careful leash Clarke had on her rage slipped. “I had to try and stitch him up while he screamed; I still don’t know if he’ll live. Looking like his father is not a good enough reason for her to shoot him!”

“We know!” Jasper threw his hands up in surrender. “We’re on your side, Boss.”

Clarke clenched her fists until her ragged nails dug into her palms. The boys watched her warily for a moment, as she dragged herself back under control. “What will you do to her?” He asked eventually.

“I don’t know.”

“She’s just a girl.”

“I am aware.” Her voice was tight but empty of the fury that still boiled under her skin.

“I can’t imagine my life without Jasper,” Monty stepped close, crouching to meet Clarke’s eyes over Wells’ unconscious body. “Every memory I have, there he is. If this happened to him I don’t know what I’d do. But I’d try to make the choice he’d want.”

Jasper leaned towards him for a moment, bumping their shoulders. “Are you gonna cry?”

“Shut up,” Monty returned the gesture with a lot more force. “What would Wells want?” He said to Clarke.

She put a hand on Wells’ chest, matching their breathing without even thinking about it. In, out; still steady and strong. “He’d want this to mean something,” Clarke said finally.

She headed for the hatch without a backwards glance, hearing Monty and Jasper scramble to follow her.

 

* * *

 

“That’s right; we’ve got ourselves a killer.”

“No one’s dead, Murphy.” Octavia called.

“Not for lack of trying though, huh?” Murphy used his grip on Charlotte’s arm to haul her face close for the question. “And from the sounds coming from that fucking dropship he might be in an hour or two.”

“Bring her back inside,” Bellamy instructed in a tone that brooked no argument. “We’ll keep her under guard ‘till we know what’s happening with Wells.”

“Oh no, that’s not the point. What matters is we trusted her and she turned on us. On one of the Saints. We don’t stand for that shit!” A few of the Saints nodded their agreement, stepping to the front of the crowd. Bellamy circled slowly around Murphy and Charlotte; putting himself between the girl and the overeager Saints.

“You were happy enough to put a beat down on Wells when we landed.” He pointed out

“I didn’t think he was a real Saint,” Murphy sneered, shrugging off the jab. “I still think he’s a fucking prick. But you were the one who said drop flags or fall in line. You changing your tune?”

“Wells isn’t dead.”

“But she wanted him dead. She pulled the trigger on him. So we float her.”

“Fuck that.” Bellamy crossed his arms and set his jaw, staring Murphy down.

“Why not?” He dropped his grip on Charlotte, storming up so there were only a few feet between them. “She deserves to float. It’s justice!”

“Revenge for something that didn’t happen isn’t justice.”  Bellamy shouted. “She’s a child; she did it to stop her fucking nightmares!”

“So we should just roll with it?” Murphy’s calm looked all the more rational against Bellamy’s anger. “It’s okay because she doesn’t know enough to feel shitty?” The group around them was shifting, dividing on either side of their conflict. Octavia moved to Charlotte’s shoulder and more than one head flicked in her direction, trying to gauge whether she was there as prison guard or protector.

“Who here wants to see the murderer hung up?” Murphy broke his staring contest with Bellamy and rounded on the crowd. “All in favour?”

The boys who’d taken to following him around stuck their hands into the air, loyally. They were the only ones.

“Looks like you lose the vote.” Bellamy said tightly.

Murphy stepped into the distance between them, fists clenching, unwilling to surrender. “This is the Saint’s way.”

“I’m not a Saint!” Charlotte screamed, defiant. “You never made me a Saint; I don’t have to answer to you!” She pushed her way out of Octavia’s guard and stormed up to Bellamy.

“Charlotte get the fuck back!”

“So they can kill us whenever they feel like it,” Murphy exclaimed. “Perfect!”

“No,” Bellamy began, but Murphy was on a roll.

“They don’t have to help, they don’t have to hunt and they get to step away from the punishment that we should be dishing out whenever it’s convenient?”

“You want to do this?” Bellamy shoved Murphy back just far enough to knock him off balance and the relieved him of the knife and gun tucked into his belt. He threw the blade to the ground, caught the gun by the barrel and offered the handle of it back to Murphy. “You think you could? Put this gun to the head of a crying twelve year old girl and pull the trigger? “

“She deserves it!” Murphy shouted back. He made no move to take the gun.

“But you want me to do it. ‘Cause you know its bullshit. You _know_ it would make you a monster.” He pointed at Charlotte. “She didn’t know.” He said. “But she sure as fuck does now. And she gets to live with it.”

“So, she just walks away?” Murphy rallied his anger but it seemed less fierce now, less justified. “We act like none of this ever fucking happened?

“No,” Clarke stepped out of the dropship, into the light; Monty and Jasper slipping past her as she stood atop the ramp like a dais. Her voice carried over the silent camp, challenged only by the sound of the two boys breathing heavily.

“About fucking time,” Bellamy muttered as he stalked to the bottom of the slope, Murphy hot on his heels.

“Charlotte can’t be allowed to remain in camp like this.” Clarke continued addressing the crowd as though he hadn’t spoken.

“So we banish her?” Finn spoke from the back of the mob. He was close to Charlotte, had been inching near her while the others fought. “She’s eleven; that’s a death sentence.”

“If she’s alone,” Clarke allowed with a shrug.

Bellamy picked up on her plan the way he always did, turning to confront her

“Don’t,” She cut him off sharply, keeping her voice low. “I don’t give a fuck whether you want to or not. Either we do this right now or kiss the Saints goodbye.”  Bellamy held her gaze for a moment, then nodded.

“Charlotte worked with the Saints on the Ark,” Clarke drew herself up, surveying the hundred, making sure they could hear every word. “We protected her, kept her fed, and safe, but she’d never joined us.  And so she says we can’t punish her like a Saint.” There was a chorus of angry mutterings from the assembled gang members. “She’s not wrong,” Clarke allowed.  “But this bullshit stops right now. We can’t just do whatever the hell we want anymore. So right here and now you make a choice. You stand with the Saints or,” She pointed to the gate. “You walk away.”

“Walk away?” Someone exclaimed. “This is where the Ark sent us.”

“They sent us to Mount Weather. We landed here. And now we’re claiming it.” Clarke stamped her foot in lieu of a flag to plant. “Not for the Ark, for the Saints.”

The girl opened her mouth to protest but Jasper’s voice cut her off. “I’ll join”

“We’ll join,” Monty corrected him. The two of them shouldered their way to the space that had cleared between Charlotte and the base of the dropship ramp. “We’ll be Saints.”

Clarke nodded, letting just a hint of a smile show through. “Glad to have you.”

Jasper paused awkwardly, looking unsure. “Do we salute, or?”

“Form up.” Miller called out before Clarke had to come up with an answer, stepping forward to heard Monty and Jasper to the far left. Those who were already part of the crew pushed over to flank the ramp, leaving everyone else crowded to the right, near Charlotte; a few of them edged away from her.

“I’m in, obviously.” Octavia barely paused to announce her intentions as she stalked across to join the two on the left. A trickle of people followed after her, boys and girls who had worked on the wall or joined the hunting parties, who had hovered at the fringes of Atom’s wake.

Twenty four left.

Bellamy snuck a look over his shoulder at Clarke and she nodded.

“I know,” He stepped forward, addressing the delinquents still looking unsure; drawing the attention of the crowd. “That you believe the Ark is coming and when it does life will go back to being fucking shit. I understand you’re scared, we all were up there. But that’s why the Saints got started; because together we don’t need to take shit from those assholes. Enough of us can make a difference. We set up here, do it right and we can make them fucking listen. But we need everyone; at each other’s throats is just where they expect us.”

Kings words, Shumway’s rallying cry. They might have been abandoned and betrayed but the Saints were still here, and Clarke would make sure things stayed that way.

More than one person in the crowd was nodding. They were drifting towards Bellamy, believing in the possibility for change that Clarke had been looking for when she’d first met the Saints. One of them was limping, supported by two others, despite her express orders not to put weight on his leg.

“Connor,” She called out and watched all eyes jerk to him as his head came up. “I promise no one’ll pee on you.”

That startled laughter out of the nervous crowd, and when Connor lifted his arms free of his friends and hobbled forward he was smiling. “You did keep my ass alive. The Saints seem worth it.”

He crossed the camp and more than a dozen kids trailed behind. Even some from outside his little crew followed, happy to have the decision made for them.

Nine remained. Including Charlotte.

And Finn, who had edged his way through the crowd towards her. He was leaning over, speaking into Charlotte’s ear; his expression insistent.  The other seven seemed wary, a few of them looking rebellious over the fact that Clarke and the Saints were forcing the issue.

“You don’t want us, then we don’t want you,” Clarke said frankly. “But if you go, then you’re alone _and_ you can’t trust each other,” She looked pointedly at Charlotte. “Saints have a code and that protects us.”

“We’ll protect you too,” Bellamy put one hand out as he spoke, offering. “You can’t go out there on your own. Join the Saints.”

The girl who had protested leaving looked down at the offered palm for a moment, and back up to Clarke. “I’m in.” She said at last, reaching out to clasp his hand.

Bellamy hauled both their hands into the air as he had once done for Wells in the church where the Saints began.

One after another they stepped forward. The last of thirty-seven teenagers who had once been Floaters and Kings and children of the Ark. Everyone joined, no one left.

Eventually only Charlotte and Finn remained. He kept whispering urgently to her, heedless of Clarke’s impatient stare. Charlotte shook her head at whatever he was saying. He tugged at her shoulder but she shrugged him off.

“Come on Charlotte.”

“No.” She insisted, backing away. Bellamy stepped forward to intervene before Finn could follow her but Clarke called out first.

“The gate is open, Spacewalker.” She taunted. “If you’re all talk, you can go.”

He looked up at her, frustrated, but Clarke wasn’t willing to give an inch. She raised her brows expectantly. With a final, worried look back at Charlotte, Finn approached the ramp and gave a mocking little bow. “As the Boss commands.”

“Welcome aboard.” Bellamy drawled. Finn shot him a glare. Clarke ignored them both and focused on Charlotte.

The girl wiped her eyes, set her shoulders and stepped forward but Clarke held up a hand. “No.”

Charlotte glanced at the gate, her head whipped back around to Clarke, and she looked panicked. “Charlotte, because of what you did, we can’t trust you and that means you aren’t a Saint. Not until you earn it.”

Someone had to guard her. Atom would have been the best choice, and she felt a sharp pang of regret at his loss. “Murphy,” She said. “You wanted her punished, you take responsibility for Charlotte.”

He stiffened, his face twisting in shock. “Not a chance!”

“The fuck you say?” Clarke let the anger still thrumming in her bones show in her voice and expression as she rounded on him.

“Okay,” Murphy wasn’t the only one taking a step back. “I got it.”

“You make sure she works, she eats, and that she’s guarded.” Clarke continued. “You decide when she’s earned forgiveness; but if anything happens to her it’s your ass.”

He looked mutinous, but moved to Charlotte’s side without arguing. “When Murphy says you’re ready and Wells feels safe with you, then you can be a Saint.” Charlotte managed a shaky nod and Clarke was happy she could return it. “Now or later?” She murmured to Bellamy as the crowd settled, satisfied.

“Later.” He said, hardly moving his lips. “Let them sweat.”

“This is over.” She said to her ranks of Saints, old and new alike. “Done. First person to bring it up gets my boot in their ass. Besides, you all have a lot more to worry about; tonight is your Canonization.”

 

* * *

 

Clarke barely had time to move away from the dispersing crowd before Finn was rushing up to her. “Are you insane?” He half shouted. Sterling put out an arm to stop him from getting any closer, but Finn was happy to keep yelling without Clarke’s participation. “He wanted to kill her! He’s a fucking crazy person and you’re just letting him babysit?” New Saints who were close by turned to watch.

Clarke pressed Sterling away with an appreciative smile. Then closed the distance between them so fast Finn jerked back. “Shut the fuck up.” She snapped, jabbing him in the chest with one finger. “If you have something to say you can fucking well ask me nicely. Until then, when I want your opinion I’ll beat it out of you.”

She stalked off, ignoring his protestations as he followed. “Clarke!”

“It’s Boss to you now.” She called over her shoulder.

The moment they were out of sight and earshot behind the dropship she whirled on him. “Don’t you ever call my authority into question in front of a crowd again.”

“Who gives a shit about your authority? This is about Charlotte!”

“I’m the one who kept her from being strung up!”

“And now?  What the hell is going to happen to her now?”

“What would have happened if you two had run off into the wilderness?” Clarke snapped back. “I’m not an idiot, Finn. You obviously asked her if she wanted to go. Murphy knows better than to fuck this up. Charlotte made the smarter choice.”

“We’d have been fine.”

“Were you planning to live in that car?” She snorted. “Or just wander and hope not to get killed? She said no. It’s done.”

Finn glared but said nothing. They stared each other down for a moment. “You had somewhere else to go didn’t you?” She realized. Clarke’s eyes caught on the flash of metal in his jacket pocket and she snatched it out before he could stop her.

It was a pencil. The graphite was dull and the eraser had been used more than once but it was whole and completely unblemished. “Where did you find this?”

“Art supply store.” He taunted.

“Show me.”

Finn gave her a considering once over, the irritation on his face at war with his obvious desire to show off. “If I tell you then where would I hide if you go ballistic?”

“You say that like you’d have a chance to run.” Clarke smirked at him. “You’re a Saint now, that means you’re mine. Show me where it is.”

“Yours, huh Boss?”

“Don’t fuck with me, jackass.” Clarke spun him around by one shoulder and shoved at his back. “If it’s something good you should have told us already.”

“Alright, alright I’m going.” He put up his hands, so it looked as though she were marching a prisoner. “Hope you’re ready for a walk.”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “Go get our packs. I’ll meet you in a minute.”

Happy to abandon Finn, she wandered across camp to where Octavia was taking an axe to a tree stump like it had done something to personally affront her. “You ready for tonight?”

Octavia swung the axe hard enough that it bit deep into the wood and left it there, standing back to grin at Clarke and crack her knuckles. “Born ready.”

“You want to go first?”

“Sure,” She shrugged. “‘Cause I know what to expect?”

Clarke shook her head. “Your brother, he told me I needed Lieutenants; people I could trust,” Octavia’s eyes went wide. “I know you’re tough, and you give a shit about people. And I know you’re not going to roll over for Bellamy just because he’s…” She trailed off with a vague gesture.

“Just because he’s Bell.” Octavia finished.

“Exactly.” Clarke laughed but Octavia looked pensive.

“I was never part of the Ark,” She said awkwardly, gesturing towards the others. “My whole world was under the floor until you came to our unit. Then it was just the skybox. I don’t belong.”

“But you want to, right?” Clarke asked. “Don’t give me that lost girl bullshit, Octavia. Those are things that make you valuable. No conflicting loyalties, no biased perspective. You would call out things I don’t even think about.”

Octavia opened her mouth, then closed it again, something hopeful on her face that was quickly quashed by suspicion. “Did Bell come up with this?”

“I’m pretty sure he’s going to be violently against it, actually.”

“Then I’m in.” She nodded quickly.

“Octavia,” Clarke chided her. “I’m serious. You’re already a Saint, and you can be a good one but this is more. If you say yes you’re my right hand. My go to, like Miller and Atom for Bellamy. That means you have to trust me, and when we’re around the others you have to fall in line. Is that going to work?”

Octavia squared her shoulders, standing straighter. “I can do this Boss.”

“I know you can,’ Clarke gave her a smile and tapped a fist against the top of Octavia’s shoulder. “Looking forward to seeing you in action.”

Octavia waved her off with a grin and went back to chopping at the stump. Clarke didn’t manage to make it ten paces before Finn swooped out of nowhere, returning to her side as though she’d never sent him away.

“You made her day.” He leaned close like he was sharing a secret.

“Eavesdropping?” She asked, archly.

“You really don’t give a shit what Bellamy thinks, do you?”

“It’s not about Bellamy,” Clarke said, exasperated. “I need people I can trust to run the crew. And Octavia can make her own choices.”

“You looking at anyone else for second in command?” he asked leadingly, waggling his eyebrows.

Clarke broke into peals of laughter. “Why don’t you prove you can follow a fucking order before we start talking about you moving up the ladder, alright?”

“In that case,” Finn said with irrepressible ego. “Let me show you the art supply store.”

 

* * *

 

What the hell Finn?”

Clarke spun around, taking in everything that had been revealed by the candle Finn held.

“What?”

When he’d pulled a blanket of moss back to reveal a hatch set into the earth, Clarke had been expecting another rusted out shell like the car; but this place was a real home, with beds and tables and photographs on the walls. It was like looking at a low tech version of the housing units back on the Ark. There was a kitchen recessed into an alcove between two support pillars and a set of bunks on the far side.  Behind the ladder they’d climbed down were sets of shelves full of boxes.

“All this and you brought back one pencil?” Clarke snatched the candle from his hand and hurried over to the dusty boxes, peeling off the plastic lids to check their contents.

“The food is expired,” He shrugged. “Any medicine probably is too.”

“Bandages don’t expire!” She grumbled, but was too engrossed in looting to really make a point of berating him. She abandoned the shelves and started casing the rest of the bunker. There were crayons in every colour, canned food, condiments, and appliances to strip. The whole thing was a goldmine. There were mattresses. And pillows for fucks sake. Clarke moved over to the bunk beds to test the softness of the synthetic material, already intending to claim the fluffiest one for herself. Everything was incredibly well preserved. The bunker doors had kept out the ravages of weather and insects and years, sealing the whole place up like a time capsule.

She pulled off her pack and strapped the pillow to the front before moving on to fil it with anything else that looked immediately useful. Finn lit a few more candles, filling the space with a soft golden glow that made even the most worn parts of the shelter feel warm and homey. It also illuminated a prize that would be worth the extra weight to take back.  Clarke stuffed it in her bag with a grin.

“So, Murphy,” Finn said apropos of nothing. “Really, why?”

“Because no one will ever accuse him of going easy on her.” Clarke picked over the kitchen, practically crawling in to the lower cabinets to retrieve a set of metal mixing bowls. “When he says she’s ready no one will challenge it. More importantly Charlotte won’t doubt it; she’ll feel like she deserves forgiveness, like she’s earned it.” Clarke called as she wriggled free with her prize. “Besides, Murphy may look like you can’t trust him with a pet rock, but he’s loyal and he believes in the gang. Maybe she’ll be good for him.”

Finn seemed poleaxed. “That’s actually really sweet.”

“You shouldn’t fucking doubt me, Collins.” Clarke scoffed. “Check the shelves for anything useful, we need to strip this place. They have a couch!” A couch that had its cushions laid out across the floor into a pallet covered with blankets. “How many times did you say you’d been here?” She called over her shoulder, prodding the very rumpled sheets with her boot.

“Once or twice.”

“Alone?” There was no immediate reply and Clarke turned to see Finn with his head half in a plastic bin looking incredibly guilty. “You sneaky fucker!” She kicked one of the cushions on the floor at him. “That’s why you didn’t want to tell anyone about this place. You’re holding out on us for a sex bunker.”

“I am not holding out on you for a-“ His face struggled between embarrassed and indignant, compromising in an expression that looked as rumpled as the sheets.

“Sex bunker,” She enunciated the words deliberately, and then affected a theatrically hurt expression. “And you didn’t even ask  _me_.”

Finn laughed, coaxed back to his usual cocky charm. “Well I would have,” He assured her, stepping closer. “You’ve been driving me crazy since we landed. But I thought you were with Wells until the other day.”

Clarke shook her head, smiling at the idea. “I’m not with Wells.”

“So I gathered,” His fingers reached out to tug the end of one blonde curl. “Does that mean we can keep the bunker? At least for a few hours.” They were close enough now that every inhale had them almost pressed together and Clarke was deeply tempted. She’d half forgotten what being touched could feel like in seven months of isolation; and clearly Finn wouldn’t be expecting anything to come of it.

“Maybe,” She leaned in, lips parting.

“It could be our little secret,” Finn’s gaze was fixed firmly on her mouth. “You don’t have to tell Bellamy everything.”

“And you killed it,”Clarke groaned. Her ardor cooled like she’d been dunked in the river again. “I told you to fuck off about Bellamy.” Bellamy, and the Saints and all the work they had still to do today. She crossed the room for her discarded pack, leaving Finn standing awkwardly, half stooped where he’d been about to kiss her.

“Really?”  He flopped back onto the cushion-less couch as she stepped away. “Come on Clarke.”

“It was a shit idea anyway.” She blew out the extra candles, dropping them into a jar Finn had left at the base of the ladder. “I’ll get a few people to come back for the rest.”

“Yeah,” He eased to his feet. “I guess you’re right.”

“You can still bring other girls here, once it’s empty,” Clarke consoled him. “I wouldn’t want to deprive you of your sex bunker.”

“Wow, thanks Boss.”

 

* * *

 

They made it back to the dropship in record time; neither of them inclined to walk slowly or keep up much conversation in the awkward aftermath of their almost kiss. Finn vanished as soon as they reached the walls. Clarke left him to it and rounded up Bellamy, Miller and Octavia to give them a rundown on what they’d found, pulling out the map to note the bunker’s location.  “If it has a few good containers for holding water we could leave some supplies there, use it in case of acid fog,” Clarke reflected. “Between there and the sunken car Wells, Finn and I were hiding in –“

“The cave,” Bellamy reminded her.

Clarke marked both locations carefully “And the cave you found - we can set up places for people to hide if they get caught outside of camp.”

“There must be more caves,” Octavia agreed. “We can send scout groups out.” Bellamy gave her a suspicious look but Miller and Clarke nodded in agreement.  

“The problem is forgetting where they are.” Miller rubbed the top of his hat. “We only have one map and everything looks like fucking trees to me.”

“We need to get everyone more familiar with woods.” Octavia declared at the same time Bellamy said: “Our hunting parties should be trained to know these places.”

Clarke grinned. “I can make it easier. “ She dug into her pack and produced a liter bottle full of bright purple paint. “This should show up pretty well.”

“You wanna tag the forest?” Bellamy took the offered bottle, judging it’s fullness by weight. “We’re going to run out pretty damn fast.

“There’s more where that came from,” Clarke snagged it back, pulling a scavenged brush from her pocket. “And I think we can do a little better.”

She wiggled her eyebrows at his questioning look and waved him and Miller away. “Get the bonfire lit and round them up. We’ll be ready to go at sunset.” She turned back to Octavia. “I’m going to need a ladder.

 

When the hundred gathered in a loose circle at the center of camp, the last rays of the sun fell on the bright purple splash of a rough fleur-de-lis tagged across the front of the dropship.

“Welcome to our initiation ceremony.” Clarke abandoned her paintbrush and the metal bowl of paint at the bottom of the ladder, sauntering over to where Bellamy and Miller were moving through the crush, urging people back to form a circle on the flattest, most open section of their camp. “Canonization has two purposes. First, we get a chance to see you in action. Now is the time to bring you’re A-game; show us what you got. Second, it means that every fucker in the Saints has bled for the Saints. We bleed to join up, and if we’re going out you can bet your ass it’ll be fucking bloody. Everyone who wears our flag,” She pointed to the symbol above them. “Who carries our colours, earned them this way. Blood in, blood out. Who first?”

“I’m first.” Octavia stepped into the center of the ring.

Clarke could see Bellamy’s jaw clench as he shifted forward, only to be blocked by Miller. She gave him an acknowledging nod and then turned a significant look on Monroe and Sterling, indicating the ring.

“You ready for this kid?” She asked.

Octavia rolled her eyes just a little, but her grin said she was enjoying the theatre of the moment. “Oh yeah.”

Clarke rolled her shoulders. “Alright then. Blood in blood out.”

She’d been looking forward to this since the bunker; eager to have an outlet for all the lingering tension Finn had woken. Clarke ducked neatly around the punch Octavia threw at her face, batting her arm to one side and stepping into her guard to plant her own fist in Octavia’s solar plexus.

She cried out and Clarke was sure that somewhere outside her narrow focus, Miller was shoving Bellamy back into place; but she had no time to look around because Octavia wasn’t going down so easily. Her sharp elbow drove up hard into Clarke’s side and Clarke fell back, giving Octavia time to straighten and aim a cross at her face. She blocked it, and the next one, then kicked out, planting her boot in Octavia’s gut.

Octavia landed hard, but was up again almost immediately, lunging for Clarke with a yell. Monroe intercepted her; taking a punch that would almost certainly leave a black eye but giving back as good as she got. Clarke circled them, trying to find an opening.  Sterling wasn’t willing to wait; he charged forward and took an elbow in the crotch for his trouble, Octavia kneeing him squarely in the face as he went down.

She got a grip on Monroe’s collar and hauled her forward, catching the smaller girl at the waist to flip her over one hip. Clarke jumped back in before Octavia could take the fight to the ground, forcing her to split her attention and try to defend herself against Clarke’s flurry of quick jabs. Monroe rolled from her back to her side, sweeping her leg out as she moved to knock Octavia’s feet out from under her.

Octavia hit the dirt with a pained noise, the wind knocked firmly out of her. Clarke didn’t give her a chance to recover, landing on one knee to straddle Octavia’s waist and crack her across the face hard enough to split her lip against her teeth.

“Yeah, take that ‘ho!” Someone yelled.” Clarke froze where she’d been winding up another punch and pointed at him. “Teo! You’re next.” She jerked her thumb towards the ring and slowly stood, reaching out to help Octavia up. “Nice job.”

“I feel like I don’t want to thank you.” Octavia said, wiping blood off her chin. But she was laughing and her brother was grinning at them both.

“First new Saint!” Bellamy roared.

“Yeah that’s right bitches!” Octavia strode over to Clarke’s abandoned paint and wet two fingers, smearing a smooth slash of colour up one cheekbone towards her temple, then spun back to the crowd throwing her arms in the air.  “Saints rule!”

The crowd cheered.

In the ring, Sterling and a new group of Saints were circling Teo like wolves. He looked nervously over to Clarke and she gave him her best wicked smirk. Octavia laughed, half-dancing back through the crowd. For a moment it seemed like she was going to throw herself back into the fray but she just beat out her enthusiasm in a chorus of smacks against Bellamy’s arm and yelled “Get him!”

The kid went down in a blur of fists and shouting, and Clarke let it go on at least a minute longer than she should have before she chose the next in line. One of Teo’s eyes was rapidly swelling shut by the time he seemed steady on his feet once more, but he headed right over to Clarke.

“Did I do okay, Boss?”

“Welcome to the Saints,” She clapped him on the shoulder, but he didn’t move away; just glanced hopefully from Octavia towards the bowl of paint. Clarke laughed when she made the connection and grabbed the bowl, drawing a streak of purple down from the corner of Teo’s right eye down his unblemished cheek. “You earned your colours, kid.” She assured him.

He beamed back as bright as the sun.

“Are we wearing fucking war paint now, Princess?” Bellamy teased.

“Octavia started it,” Clarke shrugged “I think we could use a little ritual, don’t you?” She reached out a purple thumb, almost managing to catch his chin with it before he ducked away; twisting out of Octavia’s laughing attempt to hold him still. 

“Come on, we’ve got canonizing to do.”

Before Clarke could do more than christen the next teenager to stagger out of the ring with the same mark she’d given Teo, Monty raced over to her, his palpable excitement completely unrelated to the five on one brawl happening right over his shoulder.

“Clarke, I got it!” He cheered. “I’ve got it - the wristbands - I think it’ll work this time.”

Clarke put down the bowl of paint, carefully. “Ninety percent chance of success, Monty?”

He squirmed, enthusiasm dropping. “Eighty-seven. Eighty-six?”

“Talk to me when it’s ninety. We’re not in a rush.”

He looked a little disheartened but turned to go. Clarke caught him by the arm and dragged him back, her attention fixed on where Bellamy was moving to call the end of the fight. “What?”

“Time to take a break.” She swung him towards Bellamy who caught him with a feral grin.

“You ready?”

Monty swallowed. “No.”

“Keep your hands up and don’t drop your shoulder when you punch,” He instructed. “You’ll be fine. Okay she’s done!” The Saints backed off Roma, who spat blood as she was helped her to her feet. Bellamy put both hands on Monty’s shoulders and propelled him forward. “He’s next!”

Jasper came loping around the crowd just as Monty got into the ring, waving at Clarke. “Have you seen-?” She pointed to the crowd before he could even finish the question and Jasper turned just in time to see Monty take a sucker punch to the jaw that knocked him sprawling.

“Hey!” Jasper’s bellow of rage had more than one head snapping in his direction. “Get the fuck off!” He threw himself bodily on Sterling’s back and started pounding at the back of his head. More Saints waded in to help out and the whole thing descended into chaos.

“That’s fucking illegal,” Murphy shouted. “One in the ring at a time!”

Monty was a wickedly dirty fighter for a kid who looked like such a soft touch - Clarke supposed that was what happened when your dad was a gang lord – and he and Jasper were cleaning up, back to back with blood on their teeth.

“Let them at it,” Clarke decided. “Jasper seems like he’s keeping Monty in check.”

“That’s bullshit boss!”

“Pipe down,” Octavia snapped at him. “Boss says it’s good, then it’s good.”

“Alright Octavia.” Roma cheered, a giggle in her voice. She’d tucked herself into Bellamy’s side and he was paying more attention to the cut on her head than the fight.

“Enough!” Clarke called out. “They’re done. Finn,” She searched him out in the crowd. “You’re up.”

The jeering Saints pushed him forward into the ring. Clarke drew matching streaks on Jasper and Monty’s faces and then settled in to watch the fight.

After Finn came Dax, then Jules, Fox and Isaiah. A blur of faces and fighting and streaks of purple. Connor went last. By that time the energy of the group had mellowed sufficiently that no one complained when Miller stepped up to him alone, punched him once in the face and let Bellamy call the fight. Clarke nodded her approval and used the last of her paint to mark Connor’s face. “Sit your ass back down,” She told him firmly. “You’re still healing.”

“Alright,” She waved him off and pitched her voice louder to address the whole crowd. “Everybody listen up. I want to welcome you to the Saints. Every one of you earned your colours today. Blood in, blood out.”

“Blood in, blood out!” They chorused in response.

“Now we’ve got some serious shit to discuss. Sky Saints used to run the Ark, but we were still trapped up there. Now we’re on the ground; it’s a brave new world it’s all ours!”

Ninety-seven teenagers punched the air, cheering and shouting.

“To do that, we all have to step up. Miller, you’re handling defenses. I want guards on the walls and patrolling; you train them and make sure they know what they’re doing.”

“Done.” Miller nodded.

“Octavia, scouting was your idea and I want you on it. We need to know these woods.”

“The fuck she will-” Bellamy interrupted. Clarke tried to glare him into silence but Octavia just loudly pretended he wasn’t speaking at all.

”I’ve got it Boss. “She looked ready to spit nails.

“Bellamy, till Wells is on his feet I need you to organize the hunting.”

His expression was grudging but he nodded anyway. “I can do that.”

“Good.” She said breezily. He shot her a dark look, Clarke returned it with a smug one. “Tomorrow morning, talk to one of these guys. They'll have something for you to do. It's our time now.” She grinned wildly at the crowd. “Let's get this shit started!"

As the Saints broke apart, moving towards the fire or their tents, the sky above them flared with light.

Clarke froze, her head snapping up as she looked for a threat. But there was no incoming missile, or rain of flaming arrows. There was only a vivid streak of light painting its way across the starlit sky.

“Shooting star!” Someone shouted, drawing everyone’s attention upwards.

“It’s too big,” That was Fox. “Something’s falling through the atmosphere!”

Hushed voices rose in chorus as they watched. Something was plummeting to the ground and there was only one place it could come from. Clarke felt Bellamy and Octavia shift to flank her. “Can you wish on this kind of shooting star?” She asked, heart in her throat. Bellamy raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Forget it.” Clarke sighed.

He was silent for a long moment, watching the light flare and burn as it trailed through the sky. “I wouldn’t have the first fucking clue what to wish for.” 

“What do you ask for when you have everything you could possibly want?” She teased weakly.

“To keep it, maybe.” He sighed. “What about you, Princess?”

“Moonshine and ammo.” She quipped at last. Bellamy rolled his eyes but she didn’t give him the chance to protest her evading answer. “It’s too small to be a drop ship. Do you think it’s a supply pod?”

Monty and Jasper skidded to a halt beside Clarke, tipping their heads up to watch the light stream over their heads.  It vanished into a burst of brightness behind the trees and Jasper started swearing so virulently they all stopped to stare.

“What the hell?” Octavia nudged Monty for an explanation.

“Days we’ve been on earth,” Jasper shouted at no one in particular. “Fucking days. And do we get to go explore? No. Monty and I are stuck busting our asses trying to connect with the Ark!” He threw his hands into the air.

“There’s gonna be a radio on that.” Monty sighed to the group of bewildered faces looking for a translation.

Of course there would be a radio on it. Even if by some miracle there weren’t any people there would still be a radio. The Ark had been monitoring their wristbands; they would want a report of conditions on the ground. Clarke looked around at the restless crowd of kids who had only just joined her; no few of them out of desperation and fear. If the Ark came down now they weren’t ready. She needed more time.

 “Tough to tell where it landed in the dark.” Clarke heard Bellamy’s voice like it was coming from a great distance. It took her a moment too long to think of an answer.

“We should wait for dawn,” She said at last. “Take a team out then.”

“Scavengers might get to it, He speculated. “Or grounders.”

“If they’re going for it too do you really want to meet them in the dark?”

Bellamy’s eyes traced the line of the walls. ““Better than hiding from an enemy we don’t even know is there.”

“You said fear of the grounders was helping us.” She reminded him. Clarke cast about to make sure no one was listening, but Octavia and Monty had hauled Jasper off somewhere and they were mostly alone.

“Helping us get everyone in line,” He clarified. “It’s just making me itchy.”

“I thought Roma was scratching that for you.” The words came out slightly more biting than Clarke had intended and she made an effort to laugh brightly when he raised an eyebrow at her. “Get some rest Bellamy. We’ll head out in the morning.”

“You should take your own advice.” He called out as she headed for the dropship instead of her own tent.

“I’m checking on Wells first.” She waved him off.

Clarke did check on Wells. She made sure he wasn’t feverish, examined the wound for signs of infection, and changed the cold compress that was over his eye. Then, satisfied he wasn’t in any immediate danger, she slipped out of the sleeping camp and into the woods; heading for the pod that had fallen to earth.

 

* * *

 


	4. Needs of the Few

 

 

The girl in the pod was unconscious, but her breathing was steady. The cut on her head had already clotted over.

Clarke watched the sun peak over the horizon sitting in the wet grass with a radio in her hand that was slowly repeating the message: “ _Pod One, Pod One This is Ark Station Medical; if you’re receiving please respond._ ”

She heard the sound of footsteps through the underbrush with enough time that she could have hidden, but Clarke didn’t even bother to turn until she heard. “Princess?”

Bellamy was standing alone at the edge of the woods. He looked just as guilty as she felt.

“I was thinking the river.” Clarke called to him, keeping her voice soft enough that she hoped it wouldn’t wake the girl in the pod.

“What?”

“The river,” She repeated as he joined her on the grass. “I was trying to decide whether to throw the radio in. Wondering if you had a better idea.”

“I was planning to smash it.” He reached out to touch the plastic casing of the radio. It was already cracked in places, smashing would work well. “What are you doing here, Princess?”

“I don’t want the Ark to come down.” She shrugged, jostling his shoulder with the movement.

“You were all about those fucking bracelets –“

“Well I don’t want them to die!” A bird burst out of the underbrush and into the sky, startled by the sound of her shouting. Clarke looked abashed and dropped her voice back to a murmur. “I thought it would take longer. That we’d have more time.” The radio was repeating its message again. “What the fuck do I even say?” She huffed a laugh.

“Come down if you want to, but don’t land here?” Clarke hummed her amusement, tipping her head back to watch the sky. She wondered if the Ark was right above them or orbiting a completely different part of the planet. Would they manage to land themselves closer to Mount Weather or could they be convinced to choose another place entirely?

“Thank you for following me.” She said.  

“I didn’t,” He edged slightly away as though giving her the space to remove herself. “I was coming myself. Octavia caught me and I lied to her. She was the one who noticed you were gone, so I said I was chasing you – “

“And she thought you were being helpful.”

“Yeah, joke’s on her; I’m a selfish dick.”

“He says to the girl who ran through the fucking woods in the dark to destroy a radio that might be the last hope of two thousand people because there’s no way in hell I’m going back to prison.” Clarke caught herself just before the words turned hysterical, breathing heavily. “Okay, now that I’ve said it out loud, we definitely can’t break the radio.”

“Not a chance,” Bellamy smiled and dragged both hands down his face. “Ah Princess, why’d you have to go and make my sister your fucking Lieutenant?”

Clarke blinked, surprised at the odd turn. “Because she’ll be good at it?”

“Yeah,” He let out a forced chuckle. “She will, but now she won’t want to leave with me.” 

“Neither of you are leaving, Bellamy. You keep fucking bitching about it –“

“I shot the Chancellor.” He interrupted. The radio slipped from Clarke’s fingers and he caught it on the flat of his palm before it could hit the ground. “I found out they were sending Octavia to earth and I couldn't let her go alone. Shumway came to me with a deal. Take out Jaha, and they get me on the dropship.”

“Shumway was the one who sold out the Saints.” Clarke said without thinking.

Bellamy’s face twisted in a humorless smirk. “Yeah thanks Princess, Not for nothing but I actually figured that shit out.”

“How the fuck did he even find you?” Clarke asked. “Who helped him make that deal?”

“Does it matter? Bellamy snapped back. “It’s done and if I stay those motherfuckers will roll right over you to get me.”

“The fuck they will,” Clarke waved him off. “You’re not leaving. Don’t worry about that. Who was Shumway working for? Who is the scary voice Lady?”

Bellamy scoffed. “Don’t fucking worry about it? Seriously, Princess?”

“Do you know who she was?” Clarke demanded.

“Diana fucking Sydney.”

“The old Chancellor?”

Bellamy shrugged. “Those council types are all the same,”

“That fucking bitch.” Clarke hissed. “I hope they float her slow.”

“If they can catch her,” He said. “She’s probably taken over the Ark by now.”

Clarke looked down at the radio, still repeating its message. “Ark Station Medical,” She waved it at Bellamy. “Why would it be Medical and not all of Alpha calling us?” Clarke didn’t give him time to answer. “What if there’s fighting on the Ark? A power struggle?”

“Then they won’t be able to send down the dropships right away,” He realized. “And they’ll be no better organized than we are.”

Clarke fell back onto the grass, heedless of the dew soaking into her jacket and barked a laugh at the sky. “We fucked her plans up once, right. Let the bitch bring it on.”

Bellamy’s face filled her line of vison as he leaned over. “Then you think we should check on the girl in the pod?” He teased. “’Cause she’s waking up.”

Clarke jerked to her feet. Through the pod’s dirty, scored windows she could see the girl slowly pulling off her gloves and helmet. “Oh crap,” Her words were muffled by the metal but she’d clearly discovered the cut on her head. “That’s not good.” She jumped when Clarke whipped off the shroud of parachute that kept the broken pod from exposure to the elements. “Hi,” She said awkwardly. “I guess I made it.”

“Welcome home.”

Clarke helped the girl ease herself out of the wreckage. The moment she was free she stepped away from Clarke, raising her arms to the sky and spinning in place, trying to take it all in. “I dreamed it would smell like this.” She beamed.

“You should let me clean the cut on your head.” Clarke called, but she let the girl spin. Seeing the earth for the first time was worth the moment. Even Bellamy looked indulgent, though he’d moved surreptitiously over to the broken pod to drop the radio where it might have fallen if Clarke hadn’t stolen it.

Lowering her arms, the girl relented to treatment, leaning down so that Clarke could dab at her forehead with part of the parachute that had been slowly soaking in the light mist. “This is rain, isn’t it?”

“Oh no,” Bellamy corrected. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

“Raven!” Her head snapped up at the shout.

“Finn!” She cried, her voice ragged with relief and joy. Raven threw herself forward dashing towards the group that had just emerged from the trees. Finn caught her in his arms and she cupped his face, kissing him desperately.

Clarke’s eyebrows nearly hit her hairline. From the look on Octavia’s face where she, Illya, Monty and Jasper were edging around the clinched couple, she felt much the same.

Finn pulled back. “How did you get here?”

“You know that big scrap hold? The one on K deck?” Raven gestured behind her at the remains of the pod.

“You built that pod from scrap?” Monty shot her an impressed glance before running over to examine what was left of it.

“Please,” Raven shrugged without taking her eyes off Finn. “Like it was hard.”

“You’re insane.” He chided.

Raven pressed their foreheads together. “I’d do more for you, and worse.” Her voice was thick with devotion. “Just like you would for me.”

Clarke was struck with the very strong urge to take a bat to Finn’s kneecaps.

“Clarke, I found the radio,” Monty called. Only one of his arms was visible, sticking out of the pod and waving the small device wildly.

“Clarke?” Raven broke away from Finn. “This is all because of your mom.”

Clarke’s mother had been the only person allowed to see her when she was in lock up. Because, of course, she already knew the Ark was dying. Abby Griffin had come to the Skybox only once. She’d hugged Clarke for a very long time and they’d both cried. They’d made it almost two minutes before the accusations and the anger came roaring back and Abby left. She hadn’t returned. “Did she send you all the way here to tell me again how I’m being a child?”

Raven looked bewildered. “It broke her heart that she couldn’t come with me. But we couldn’t wait,” She trailed off and horror dawned across her face. “We couldn’t wait because the council is voting today whether to kill three hundred people to save air.”

She fairly leapt for the radio, still reiterating its message from Monty’s hand. “Come in Ark Station Medical, come in Ark Station Medical. This is Pod one. I have landed.”

There was a long pause.

No one responded. The call to Pod One repeated again.

The whole group deflated. “Fuck,” Raven cursed and kicked the side of the craft. “Ark Station Medical this is Pod one, come in Ark Station Medical.”

There was a rasp and a click, and a distorted male voice. “ _Raven_?”

“Jackson!” She shouted. “Ark Station this is Raven Reyes. I am on the ground.”

“ _Are you – anyone?“_ The radio buzzed with static, clicking on and off.

“Say again Ark Medical, we’re losing you.”

_“- Can’t hear – radio_ –“ The sound sputtered and died, and Raven clicked the radio off with a growl of frustration.

“There’s some kind of interference,” She looked up, judging the cloud cover, between the broken treetops where the pod had crashed through.

“I can boost it,” Monty offered, climbing out of the pod. “Graft it into the setup I was building for the wristbands.”

“Ten ration tickets says I can do it better,” Raven smirked at him. Monty just put up has hands with an affable shrug.

“Even if it won’t work, we’ve got all the stuff Sterling pulled out of the art supply bunker,” Clarke deliberately stressed the mention of the foxhole just watch Finn flinch, turning to Bellamy. “You, Illya and Jasper stay here and start stripping the pod.”

“No one touches that pod but me.”

“You planning to fly it back?” Bellamy challenged.

“You know how to take it apart without blowing yourself up on the fuel line?” Raven countered.

“I can,” Jasper offered. Bellamy smiled down at him like a proud father, and then Jasper ruined it by looking dubiously over his shoulder at the wreckage. “At least I think so.”

“We don’t have time for this bullshit,” Clarke urged Octavia and Finn towards the woods. “If they’re planning to float three hundred people we can be damn sure it won’t be council members and they won’t be asking,” Clarke sighed. “Raven you handle the radio. Jasper, if you’re not sure don’t touch it; start on something else. Illya hold this place down and we’ll send you more kids with mech experience. Anyone else wanna remake the plan?” She paused for emphasis but Raven seemed more occupied with the hand that Finn had taken in both of his; which marked the only positive thing that Clarke expected to come out of that mess.

 

* * *

 

Raven kept trying the radio as they walked, but it seemed to be getting worse rather than better. She stopped when they reached camp, looking taken aback at the sight of the dropship.

Clarke had to admit the sight struck a balance between impressive and slightly slapdash. The wall was essentially complete, standing tall and strong and keeping the bounds of the camp safe. Inside, the space was a clear run to the dropship. They’d placed the rows of tents on the far side, leaving an open area for the large fire pit they gathered around in the evenings and the beginnings of a smokehouse and storage buildings framed up to the far side. And over it all was the dropship itself, standing tall enough to dwarf the forest that they’d cut away around it, the bright purple splash of the fleur-de-lis blazing their allegiance to the world.

“Good, isn’t it?” She smirked at Raven’s gob smacked look.

“Could be better,” She recovered quickly. “But it will be now you’ve got me.” She smiled at Finn and swayed into his side.

“From a run-down church to a spaceship.” Bellamy nudged Clarke as he passed through the gate. “We Saints sure know how to pick a crib.”

“To be fair, the rundown church was _on_ a spaceship.” She countered. “Octavia, you should get your scouting party together if you’re going.”

“Already on it, Boss.” Octavia called out from where she was fixing on the pack that Monroe had brought over for her. At her side was Sahil, one of the Saints who had followed Red’s team back on the Ark; and Jules, who’d proved his speed during canonization, though not well enough to avoid a wicked looking bruise on his forehead.

‘Be back before sundown!” Her brother shouted as they headed past him, back into the forest.

“Get fucked, Bell!” Was Octavia’s only reply.

“This shit is your fault, you know.” He told Clarke. She ignored him, breezily retuning her attention to Monty and Raven. “Monty you’ll show her where your set up is? Finn I’m sure you have shit to do.” But as Raven stepped into the center of camp the radio in her hand crackled to life, suddenly clear.

“ _Raven, I hope you can hear me, that you’re getting some of this_ –“

“Ark Station Medical,” She had the radio up in an instant. “I read you. This is the ground.”

The whole camp stopped.

If the pretty new girl in the bright orange jacket hadn’t attracted attention, a radio to the Ark certainly made up for it. Kids came leaping over half cut firewood and abandoned water buckets to listen.

“ _Oh thank god_ ,” The voice at the other end was cleared now and Clarke swayed a little with relief that it wasn’t her mother.

Her shoulder bumped against Bellamy, who was closer than she’d realized and he shifted so they were standing arm to arm, a united front.

“Hello Ark Station!” Raven’s grin was blinding. “The ground is beautiful. Repeat the ground is beautiful and I’m standing with –“ She spun towards Clarke.

“Fuck no.” Clarke said instantly, jerking her hands back to her shoulders so Raven couldn’t make her take the radio.

Raven’s smile slipped as she took her finger off the button. “They need to know you’re alive. That’s the whole point.”

“So tell them,” Monty suggested, looking carefully at Clarke. “Just don’t say who.”

“ _Pod one? Raven. Please repeat_.”

Raven put the radio back to her mouth. “Sorry Jackson. I said I’m on the ground with the hundred.”

There was a slightly distant whoop from the radio as though Jackson had put it down to cheer properly. “ _Abby’s in surgery, they postponed the vote until she’s done.”_ He said breathlessly. “ _I’ll tell Kane – wait no. I better not. Are you alright? Can you wait?_ ”

“Yeah we’ll wait.” Raven laughed. “I’ll keep the radio hot for you Ark Station Medical. Raven out.”

Her happiness was only tentatively echoed by those who had families waiting for them. Some exchanged excited hugs -Clarke saw one girl with tears falling down her cheeks - but more were trading cautious glances. Even the new Saints looked wary of what this might mean.

“Bellamy,” Roma’s voice was low as she approached him, but it carried in the silence of the camp. “If the Ark comes down…” Clarke wondered if he’d told her what he’d done to get on the dropship.

“Wait Bellamy Blake?” Raven exclaimed. “Oh they’re looking everywhere for you.”

“Looking for him,” Finn quirked a condescending brow. “Why?”

“Raven.” Clarke said warningly.

“He shot Chancellor Jaha.”

Clarke pressed her fingers to her forehead as half camp erupted into a furious chorus of speculation and the other half burst into cheers. Laughing, Murphy abandoned Charlotte to run up to Bellamy. “Fuck yes, my boy!”  Bellamy rolled his eyes and kept his arms crossed, but he did make one hand into a fist for Murphy to pound.

“Yeah he’s not my favorite person either,” Raven gave them a scornful once over. “But he isn’t dead.”

“What?” Clarke, Monty and Murphy all said in unison.

“You’re a lousy shot.”

“Since when?” Clarke boggled at Bellamy.

He shrugged and looked embarrassed. “Shumway _wanted_ him dead. Fucking that asshole over seemed more important than killing Jaha.”

“What if they think it was us?” Someone called out. “That the Saints put a hit on the Chancellor? What do we do when the Ark comes down?”

“They’re not coming down tomorrow.” Clarke said trying to sound as reassuring as possible. “It might be months before they send anyone at all. We’re keeping contact to save lives; same as the wristbands.”

Murphy looked as though he couldn’t decide whether he was pleased or disappointed. Grudgingly he nodded and bumped his fist with Bellamy’s again. Clarke gave them both a bemused glare. “At least Wells will be happy.”

“He’s still sleeping.” Murphy said aside to her, then he caught sight of Charlotte watching them awkwardly from the edge of the crowd. “What the fuck are you doing, Shooter? I said sort the bolts; is it done?” He stormed off to redirect her attention to her job.

“That goes for the rest of you,” Bellamy instructed. “Everyone’s got work to do.” The crowd nodded, placated for the moment, and most of them dispersed to their work.

“Fuck me running,” Clarke sighed. “Okay, I’m going to check Wells.”

Raven and Monty followed her to the dropship. Raven looking suspiciously from the radio to the tree line they had cut back, and half listening to Monty’s explanation of how he’d failed to get the wristbands working. Clarke let them fade into the background as she checked Wells wounds for infection.

He woke with a hiss under her fingers and thrashed, disoriented until she could pin his arms. “It’s me,” She whispered. “It’s Clarke. You’re safe.”

He opened his mouth but only a raspy wheeze came out until she tipped his head up to help him drink a little water. “Hey,” He croaked, once he’d managed half the cup. “Hurts.”

“That’s ‘cause we don’t have any painkillers.” She reminded him, rewetting the compress on his broken eye socket. “Sleep will help. I just need you to stay awake long enough to drink some tea for me.”

He didn’t manage it, slipping back into a doze almost instantly, but when she’d made up the tea he roused enough to drink it and make faces at the taste.

“I’ll put sugar in it next time,” she teased, as though refined sugar was something they didn’t wait all year to have on Unity Day.

“And lemon.” Wells had gotten a lemon square once, on his tenth birthday; with real artificial flavouring. He’d shared half of it with Clarke and she’d drawn lemons for weeks remembering the bright sour taste.

“Naturally.” She laughed, soothing a hand over the uninjured side of his head. “Sleep.”

“He’s lucky to have you,” Raven called from Monty’s makeshift lab bench. She picked up the gadget she was prying at with a screwdriver and came to crouch next to Clarke.

“I’m not his fucking girlfriend.” Clarke groused.

“But he still has you. I get it. I’d have died without my boy next door.” That made Clarke turn. “My mom hooked for the Kings,” Raven said. “When she was sober or when my rations didn’t get her enough moonshine. Tried to sell me to them, but they didn’t take underage girls before Zoe rolled in.”

“You made it out.” Clarke didn’t have to phrase it as a question. The spark of discovery and joy in Raven would have been extinguished along with her quick temper if she’d been working under Zoe.

“I was already in Zero-g mech training by then,” Raven’s smile was proud. “Youngest in a century. I stayed with Finn, or slept in the suit bay. They watched out for me. And then the Saints came in out of nowhere and I could stop looking over my shoulder.”

“The Kings got soft.” Clarke shrugged, then leaned to the side so she could look around Raven. “Sorry Monty.”

“No Kings here, Boss.” He smiled, tapping one finger against his cheek where she’d streaked him with purple.

Raven finally popped the case she’d been fiddling at, yanking out a small tangle of metal and wires. She moved back to the lab bench to plug the scrap into Monty’s system. “The Saints killed Zoe.” She said, checking the wire connections.

“Falling off the Silo killed Zoe.” Clark corrected. She squeezed Wells’ hand one more time and wandered over to watch.

 Raven looked up sharply, cursing when a wayward spark hit her finger. “You were there?”

“Who do you think shot her off the balcony?” She smirked. “Well, Bellamy and Monty’s dad helped. What a fucking bitch.” Monty reached out for a high five without looking, Clarke tapped his hand obligingly.

“And now the Saints are down here,” Raven pulled Monty’s hand back down so he could brace some piece of their mechanical Frankenstein. “I saw the logo. How many?”

“All of them.” He said.

“Seriously?”

“Every last one.” Clarke said proudly. She shot Raven a sly glance. “Why? You want to join up.”

 “I go where Finn goes.” Raven twisted one last connection into place. “There.”

Clarke opened her mouth, and then closed it again. She was not going to get involved with that drama. Raven clicked the radio back on. It buzzed a little, but with half the amount of static there had been at the gate. She didn’t look please through, only frustrated.  

“You see what I mean?” Monty said. “With this level of boost the signal should be better than clear.”

“It could be the cloud cover.”

“It’s not,” He insisted. “It’s something in the trees.”

“The trees block the signal?” Clarke asked. Between the crash and finding material for the walls, they’d chopped down a wide circle around the dropship, but if the trees were still a problem she could have Octavia’s scouts look for a meadow or something.

“They shouldn’t.” Raven snatched up they toolkit they’d scavenged together and headed for the ladder. “Come on Monty. We need to check something.”

 

* * *

 

Two training sessions, three cuts to stich, a trip to the river for more seaweed, and removing one massive splinter later; Finn finally managed to corner Clarke alone before anyone else could ask her a question. He passed her a handful of the nuts they’d started collecting and she dropped gratefully into a nearby seat to take a break. She’d missed dinner and the camp was settling down as the light began to fade.

He settled down next to her. “You look run off your feet.”

“Wells needs to get his ass better soon or he’s losing his place as my lieutenant. “ She grumbled.

“He’s okay though?” Finn’s face was the picture of concern.

Clarke reached out, put the heel of her hand against his forehead and shoved him back, so that he fell out of his jump seat onto the ground. “You don’t fucking care Finn. What do you want?”

“I care,” He protested. Clarke just crossed her arms and gave him an unimpressed look. “Fine, I do care, but I wanted to ask you not to say anything to Raven.”

Clarke made an mm-hmm sound of acknowledgement, waiting expectantly. Finn cracked. “I thought I was never going to see her again,” He protested. “And then I thought we were all going to die and Monty couldn’t get the radio working…” Clarke deigned to raise her eyebrows at him but otherwise said nothing. “Raven doesn’t need to know. It would only hurt her.” He gave her an imploring look that softened Clarke for an instant before he opened his mouth again. “Besides, I don’t want you two to start fighting.”

“Because when you indicated you were available for casual sex I almost took you up on it? Yeah that’s going to be a real problem for me,” Clarke rolled her eyes. “Look Finn, I don’t know who you cheated on Raven with– no, don’t _tell_ me!” She held up a hand to stop him as he opened his mouth. “This is going to explode in your face and obviously you’re trying to weasel out of it; so I only have one thing to say: If you let your bullshit fuck up this camp I will send you to live in that goddamn bunker.”

Bellamy hurried up to them, seeming unconcerned to find Finn on the ground with Clarke leaning over him wearing a threatening expression. “Have you seen Octavia?”

“She’s out with the scouts.” Clarke kept her attention on Finn.

“And they should have been back by now. It’s been hours.”

“They might be lost, or just slow,” She said, turning up her nose at Finn, who didn’t take the obvious dismissal. “Maybe they found something.”

“Or something found her,” He clenched his jaw, scanning the forest as though he might be able to see Octavia through the tress.  “We should go look for her.”

She sighed and stood; waving Finn away with the universal gesture for ‘I’m fucking watching you’. “You get a group together; I’ll check if Monty and Raven are back then meet you by the gate.”

 

* * *

 

 

Monty was on the wall, talking to Miller excitedly about something, so Clarke headed to the dropship. The lower floor was full of machinery and loose bits of writing - things they were trying to avoid getting dirty - but all the Saints had abandoned it. Which Clarke was thankful for when the radio Raven had taken up to the workbench on the second level clicked to life and the sound of her mother’s voice made her trip over the ladder.

“ _This is Ark Station Medical calling the ground. Come in_.”

“Reading you Ark Station Medical,” The smile was audible in Raven’s voice. “Good to hear from you.”

“ _Raven, is she there_?” Clarke let go of the ladder as if it burned her, backing away from it on the off chance Raven might see her through the hatch.

“She’s here Abby; and she’s your daughter all the way.

“ _Oh_ ,” Even through the distortion Abby’s voice sounded choked. “ _We had the bracelets but – Can I talk to her_?”

Clarke leaned back further against the wall of the dropship, as though her mother might be able to sense she was nearby, whether Raven knew or not.

“Clarke went to the river,” Raven explained. “But she’ll be back soon. And now the council will know it’s safe to send people down. You told them, right?”

“ _The council_ ,” Abby, stopped and then began again, her tone turning distant. “ _The council has voted in favour of downgrading the population_.”

“Downgrading?” Raven sounded stunned. “Downgrading!” She repeated, viciously. “You mean murder.”

“ _The population of the Ark can’t be sustained, even for another week_.”

“So send them down. That was the fucking point of all this!”

“ _We can’t_.” Abby’s voice was a whisper but it still managed to echo against the dropship’s walls. “ _There aren’t enough ships to get everyone to the ground. The council ruled that a sacrifice now buys us more time to find a way to bring the maximum number of people down_.”

“The maximum number,” Raven scoffed. “The maximum, but not all. You’re going to leave people up there!”

“ _Everyone of value who can be taken will be brought to the ground_.”

“And who gets to make that list, huh?” Raven spat. “Who’s valuable? I guess the council decides that too.”

“ _I did what I could Raven_ ,” Abby protested.  “ _I’m going to send out Jake’s broadcast to the Ark so at least the people understand_.”

Clarke scrambled up the ladder, her hand already out to demand the radio as she hauled herself through the hatch. His fury matched the look on Raven’s face as she shouted into the radio. “That’s not good enough!”

“ _I was outvoted_.”

“So do something else.”

“ _There isn’t enough time. It’s happening tomorrow morning_ ,” Her tone was resigned. “ _This is the council’s decision_.”

“Then the _council_ better not contact us again!” Raven clicked off the radio, pitching it across the room to land in a pile of discarded seatbelt straps before Clarke could ask for it. “How can they do this?” She demanded.

“They think it’s the right thing.” Clarke sneered, glaring upwards as though she could make them feel her anger.

“Fuck their right thing. And fuck their secrets. No one on the Ark even knows you’re gone, you know that?” She paced the floor, kicking thing out of her way. “People are guessing, there are rumors, but officially Skybox is under quarantine for an infection. I only knew because Abby needed me. Because that’s all they care about, what they can get out of you.”

“We’ll think of something.”

“Short of screaming at them all over the Ark-wide channel I think we’re shit out of luck.”

Clarke looked up at her sharply. “Can you do that?”

“Sure,” Raven shrugged. “I have a list of all Ark frequencies. Abby wanted me to memorize it in case I couldn’t reach her at medical.” She stopped pacing, realization dawning over her. “You’re not serious.”

“Clarke!” A shout came from outside. “Get the Boss!”

“Fuck.” They rushed for the ladder and out to the wall, almost colliding with Bellamy as Miller and the guards hauled the gate open.

“Where is she?” Octavia was the first one through, straining with the weight of the enormous man in ragged leather hanging between her and Sahil’s shoulders. “We need the Boss!”

Miller, usually so taciturn, spoke for all of them. “Holy fucking shit.”

It was impossible to see what he looked like under the blindfold that had been tied around his head, but even slumped unconscious it was clear he would stand taller than almost anyone in the camp. The leather that made up his clothing was patched with other fabrics and bits of metal, making him look broader and probable more fearsome under normal circumstances.

Octavia glared up at them through her hair, her face sheened with sweat from the effort of carrying the large man. “Yes, it’s a grounder. Now fucking help me, he’s hurt!”

“Put him in the dropship.” Clarke ordered. It took three Saints to lift the man properly. Dax tangled his arm in the grounder’s strapped bag three times before he grew frustrated enough to rip it off. Clarke bent to retrieve the bag, and the book that had fallen out of it.

The volume was wrapped in leather, likely to keep the paper from being damaged or dirtied.  Ignoring the commotion around her, she untied the cover and flipped delicately through the pages. The language wasn’t anything she’d ever seen before, but there were a number of highly detailed sketches. Landscapes and plants with careful notations beneath them. And on one page a set of tidy columns of tick marks, with five scratched out. Clarke didn’t need to understand the title at the top to know what they meant; one hundred and one neat little marks that proved the grounders had been watching them right from the beginning.

“Roma,” She waved her over from where the girl had been crowding after the unconscious grounder.

“What do you need?”

“This,” Clarke waved the journal and then dropped it into Roma’s outstretched hand. “Grab a notebook from the bunker stash and copy this out the best you can.”

“Is that his?” She looked speculatively at the unfamiliar writing. “I don’t recognize the language.”

“Me either. Someone in camp might but don’t ask without going through me,” She waited for Roma’s nod. “As far as anyone is concerned, you don’t have this.”

“Why?”

“Because if it turns out he’s a nice grounder, we don’t want him to know we stole his stuff.”

Roma laughed absently, her attention already fixed on paging through the book. “Got it, Boss.” Clarke turned to leave but Roma caught her by the arm. “Did you see this?” She offered the book back, turned to the last used page.

It was a charcoal sketch of Octavia. The grounder was obviously a decent artist to begin with but devoted attention had been paid to catching the lines of Octavia’s profile, the sad but determined look in her eyes and the butterfly resting on her hair. Clarke remembered that moment. “That was Atom’s funeral.”

“It seems like she caught this attention.”

Clarke watched the little group disappearing into the dropship. “That is very good to know.” She mused, leaving Roma behind.  

“What the hell happened?” Bellamy was demanding of his sister as the group wrestled the grounder up to the second level of the dropship.

“Found a cave,” Octavia groaned as she reached down through the hatch to help pull him up. “I thought there might be animals inside, so I was trying to be quiet. Then he came rushing out. He ran right into me,” She fell back as the others maneuvered him through the rest of the way, rubbing at her back. “I think I scared him or something. Because he just froze. Then he started shouting and I started shouting and I hit him in the head.” She watched anxiously as the Saints bound the man’s wrists. “Don’t hurt him alright? He didn’t do anything.”

“I won’t hurt him while he’s useful.” Bellamy allowed, nodding at Miller and Dax.

“I brought him here for treatment, not an interrogation,” Octavia put herself between them and the grounder. “I don’t even think he speaks English. Anything you ask he won’t understand.”

Whether the big, bald man had been faking unconsciousness or just woken, the moment Octavia was in range he seized her, looping his bound hands around her neck to brace one forearm against her windpipe and twisting his wrist till the ties bit deep to get his other hand behind her neck, ready to crush.

“Octavia!” Bellamy whipped out his gun, pointing it right at them man. He recoiled sharply from the weapon, dragging Octavia back with him towards a corner as the other Saints took aim at his head.

“Bell, no!” She put one hand out, curling the other around the grounder’s forearm. “It’s okay,” Octavia kept her voice soft, craning her neck as much as she could to look around at him. “We’re not going to hurt you. I promise we won’t hurt you.”

“Take your fucking hands off my sister.” Bellamy ordered him, tightening his grip on the gun.

“Stop!” Clarke shouted, pulling herself up through the hatch.

“Boss don’t let them hurt him.” Octavia cried at the same time as Dax started shouting. “We need to put him down.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Clarke said loudly. “Guns down.”

“Princess,” Bellamy warned through gritted teeth.

“Down.” She insisted, pointing at the floor. The Saints lowered their weapons, but didn’t put them away. “He’s not going to hurt her.”

“How the fuck do you figure that?” Bellamy gritted, the muscle in his jaw jumping.

“Just trust me,” Clarke approached slowly, keeping both hands slightly raised so the grounder could see she wasn’t a threat. “Can you understand?”

He said nothing. Just glared at her with angry dark eyes. Clarke tried to modulate her tone so that it was soothing, non-threatening. “We don’t want to hurt you. She brought you because you were injured. Let Octavia go.” She beckoned, as though urging Octavia forward.

His grip loosened. “Ai breik em au,” He said finally. “Yu breik ai au.”

The language meant nothing to Clarke but she tried to clear her expression before he confusion became obvious, nodding instead. “I think so, yes.”

Slowly, he untwisted his hands from Octavia’s neck. She threw herself forward into Clarke’s arms at the same moment Bellamy dropped his gun to dive forward and slam the man back against the wall.

“Bellamy, stop!” They cried in unison, but he wasn’t listening. He wrenched the grounder’s bound hands above his head and roped them firmly to a rail; giving him just enough slack to stay sitting and not move.

Octavia shoved her way out of Clarke’s hold. “He just wants you to let him go, we have to let him go!”

“You understood that?” Dax said suspiciously, his gun moving in her direction.

“What the fuck else would he be asking for?” She shouted back, lurching to her feet to wrest the weapon from his grip. “Put that down before you hurt someone.”

Clarke hauled Bellamy back, but made no move to untie the grounder. He snarled at her, baring his teeth in a move that should have been ridiculous but when coupled with the dark war paint and massive frame, was deeply unsettling. “Did anyone recognize the language?”

The watching Saints shook their heads.

“Well it wasn’t one of the big three. Go out and see who in the camp speaks something other than English, Cantonese or Russian. Maybe if we can talk to him, I can treat his head wound. Octavia, get him some water and see if he’ll eat,” She instructed as the others left. “Bellamy do not kill him. We’ve got more important shit to deal with tonight than this.”

“Fucking seriously?” Clarke heard him ask as she banged the hatch hut behind her.

 

* * *

 

Raven, Miller and Monty were waiting just outside the dropship door. Clarke directed them towards Bellamy with a jerk of her thumb, then retrieved Murphy from gate duty, leaving Charlotte with Sterling. Murphy swore a blue streak when he got a good look at the grounder, but Clarke just shoved him towards the opposite side of the second level.

Wells roused enough to groan in pain as they settled in next to his pallet. Clarke soothed a hand over his head and propped her back against the side of his pillow as the group found seats around her. “Alright,” She said. “Sit down, shut up. We’ve got a problem.”

“That problem?” Murphy pointed at the grounder, who was stubbornly refusing Octavia’s offer of water.

“No,” Clarke smiled wide and obviously false. “It’s our lucky fucking day and we have lots of problems.”

Miller pushed his beanie back to rub at his forehead. “Should he be hearing this?”

“Motherfucker doesn’t speak English.” Bellamy muttered, glaring fixedly at his sister.

“Octavia if he doesn’t want it, leave him so your brother will stop acting like a jealous girl.” Raven called.

Murphy snickered and Bellamy shot him a betrayed glare. Clarke just rolled her eyes. “Can we fucking focus?”

“This is about the Ark.” Raven realized, perching on the end of the crate lab table and ignoring Monty’s outraged attempts to shoo her off.

Octavia dropped down next to her. “What about the Ark?”

“The Ark is going to float three hundred people,” Clarke said to her little council.  “They know the ground is survivable, but they don’t have enough dropships to get everyone to earth, and they’re out of time to come up with another solution. The air they gained by getting rid of us wasn’t as much as they’d hoped,” She added wryly. “Raven says the people don’t even know we’re gone. Skybox is ‘under quarantine’.

“My mother plans to tell the Ark about the air problem using message she had my father floated for. I want to beat her to it, make sure they know we’re down here.”

Octavia and Monty were nodding, but the rest looked more pensive.

“The problem,” Clarke continued. “Is exactly what happens then. We all know the Ark is a powder keg. Do nothing and we can pretty much guess how this plays out. We drop that kind of bomb and who knows what’s going to be left afterwards. Most of the crew have family up there. They might get hurt,” Clarke waved at the grounder who narrowed his eyes at them. “And we know for sure we’re not alone. If the Ark gets fucked, no one is coming.”

“Tell them,” Murphy said instantly. “Then let’s get these goddamn things off our wrists and they can sort their own shit out.”

“Compelling,” Wells wheezed. Clarke looked down at him; his face was still half swathed in bandages and tight with pain but his gaze was clear. “We cause anarchy it’s going to hurt more than it helps.”

“I’m with Wells,” Raven said. “I might hate them, but if you force the council they could float whole sections.”

“People won’t stand for that,” Miller said. “The guards won’t.”

“Neither will parts of the council.” Monty agreed. “My dad won’t let them.”

“Abby got outvoted.” Raven pointed out, bitterly.

“My mother is not a shining fucking example of sticking to her principles.” Clarke said. “This is about whether it’s worth the risk we set off a power struggle. Murphy’s a yes. Miller?”

“Yes.” He said firmly, echoed after a moment by Monty.

“Just let them know we’re alive so they have options.” He said.

“Interrupt the broadcast,” Octavia snapped her fingers. “Let her give the bad news and then come in with the good.”

“Let Abby do this,” Wells tried to shake his head, and then winced at the movement. Clarke helped ease him up until he was half sitting against the dropship wall, pressing the pillow behind his head. “We don’t need to do anything at all. Dad made plans for Jake’s message.”

“Of course he did.” Murphy muttered making a jerk off motion. Raven leaned around Octavia and smacked him in the back of the head. “Shut the fuck up.”

Bellamy sighed when Clarke turned to him. “You know what I think. Chaos up there will keep us safe. Tell them everything. Give them enough to burn the whole Ark down.”

 “What about Mom?” Octavia demanded. “If the Ark goes bad what happens to her?”

“The most important thing is keeping you safe,” He said. “Mom would agree with me.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Octavia, you’re my responsibility. I need to protect you.”

“I didn’t ask you to!” She shouted.

“Enough.” Clarke said loudly. “This is bigger than one person. It has to be about what will keep us protected, and trying to save as many as we can.”

“We can’t save them,” Wells snapped. “We should stay out of it, Clarke. You know there’s nothing we can do. ”

“We can do what my dad always said we should,” She shrugged. “Tell the people what we know and hope they save themselves.”

Wells glared at her for a long moment before finally dropping back to his pillow. “Alright.”  The group nodded their agreement, all of them looking unhappy and much too young to be making this decision.

A knock sounded against the hatch. “Boss?” Roma’s voice drifted through.

Miller rose to let her in. Roma paused when she saw their little council, caught between them and the grounder’s dark glare. She offered Clarke the journal. “I found this by the gate.” The cover had been smeared with mud. Clarke gave her a fractional nod of approval as she came to get the book and a quicksilver smile flashed across Roma’s face.

“This must be yours?” Clarke turned to the grounder and bent to slide it back into his pack. She struggled with the strange, wrapped clasp and Octavia bustled over “Like this,” She twisted the leather strips holding it open and the cover of the satchel came away before Clarke could adjust her grip. The whole bag went ratting to the deck; spilling out a pack of tiny bottles, something that might have been dried meat, a horn, and a small, decorative knife.

The grounder jerked forward, straining to attention. Clarke shot him an apologetic look and started shoving things back into the bag. Octavia scooped up the small knife, running her thumb over the elaborately carved handle. “Did you make this?” She asked him, pulling it free of the sheath. “It’s pretty.”

“Hod op!” The grounder kicked out at the blade, getting his feet under him and straining against the ties on his wrists. Octavia dropped into a crouch so they were eye to eye, putting her hands up, knife in one hand, and sheath in the other. “I’m not going to hurt you with it.”

“No kut yu op!” The grounder said insistently, wrenching at her again. The rope on his wrists gave under the strain and he fell, scrambling for Octavia.

The rest of their little council lunged forward. Bellamy elbowed his way past Miller and Roma, trying to pull Octavia back. Murphy snatched up a length of broken pipe and shoved himself between her and the grounder. “Say goodnight fuckhead.”

Octavia twisted on her haunches, trying to pull Murphy back, but he just shrugged her off.

“No don’t!” The grounder shouted.

Clarke scrambled towards him but not fast enough. Octavia lost her balance and fell to the deck, hissing as the bared blade she was holding cut into her fingers. Murphy brought the pipe down hard on the grounder’s head.

 He slumped, unconscious.

“Stop giving him head trauma!” Clarke yanked the pipe out of Murphy’s hand and flung it across the room where it hit the wall with a deafening clang. “If he didn’t hate us before he sure as fuck does now.”

“Who gives a shit?”

“His people might!”

Bellamy dropped to his sister’s side. “You’re bleeding.”

“Because I fell while holding a knife,” She shook him off. “Holy fuck, will you all calm down?” Octavia pushed to her feet and shouldered through to the grounder.

“He’s alright.” Clarke checked his pulse “Just unconscious.”

She and Miller bound his hands. This time with seatbelts that wouldn’t rip the way the electrical cording had. Miller ran the makeshift ropes through the rail again, keeping the grounder in place.

“That’s what he gets for starting trouble.” Murphy said smugly.

“Yeah,” Raven rolled her eyes. “Good job beating on a tied up guy.”

Octavia shook out her cut hand with a wince. “Rinse out those cuts,” Clarke ordered. “Who knows what was on that knife.”

“They’re nothing,” Octavia waved her off. “I can barely feel them.”

“Boss?”

“And would you assholes please stop attacking our prisoner for no goddamned reason?” Clarke rounded on the rest of them. “I’d like to try and get something useful out of him.” 

“Boss.”

“He’s dangerous.” Bellamy protested.

“We’re all dangerous.”

“Clarke!” Roma shouted, finally drawing everyone’s attention. She’d pulled the journal back out, flipping it to a page of sketches to match them against the knife. “Check Octavia.”

“I’m fine,” Octavia slurred. She took one shaky step back, pressing the heel of her uninjured hand against her head. “I just feel a little woozy.” Bellamy caught her as she collapsed.

“What the fuck? O, speak to me.”

“Don’t shake her!” Clarke protested, but was drowned out by Raven demanding that he “Put her down Blake, for fucks sake.” Monty speculating on whether she’d eaten and Bellamy ignoring them all while trying to check his sister for injuries.

“I think she’s been poisoned.”

Roma spun the book around so they could see the picture. It was a rough sketch of the knife with two lists of words next to it. The last one on the first list had ben circled twice. There was a brief pause and then everyone started shouting at once.

“Bellamy,” Clarke said. “Put her down next to Wells.” She pointed at Miller. “Wake him up. Don’t hurt him.” And then hauled Roma over to Octavia’s limp form. “How did you know?”

“I don’t,” Roma pulled the grounder’s bag along and dumped its contents across the floor, snatching up the set of tiny bottles and the case that had held them. “But look, the symbols match,” half the listed symbols had been carefully inscribed on the cork stoppers of the bottles. The one that bore the mark which had been circled in the journal was only half full.

Bellamy snatched it from Clarke’s grip, opening it gently. “Don’t touch that shit.” She warned.

He ignored her, sniffing at the liquid and then checking the discarded knife. “They smell the same.”

“So this,” Roma tapped the last entry in the second column of symbols, right next to the circled one. “Must be the antidote.”

“How do you figure that?” Murphy scoffed.

“Do you have a better idea?” Monty shot back.

“It doesn’t matter.” Raven had dropped to her knees next to Roma, helping to search through the bottles. “That one isn’t here.”

“Miller?” Clarke shouted.

“I can’t wake him, Boss.”

Monty threw the bowl of water that Clarke had been using for Wells’ compresses over the grounder. His head lolled but he didn’t stir.

“He must have it though,” Still moving slowly, Wells offered his pillow and Bellamy tucked it under Octavia’s head, his thumbs smoothing reflexively over her temples. “He’d be stupid to keep that stuff around without an antidote.”

Roma checked the vials again, lining them up carefully to be certain. “It’s not here.”

“Octavia said he lived in a cave,” Miller said. “It must be there.”

“And if it’s not?”  Murphy was looking at the grounder.

“Then I’ll start cutting off pieces until he tells me where it is.” Bellamy stood, the promise of bloody death in his face.

“I know what to look for.” Roma followed him to her feet. “I’ll get the rest of Octavia’s scouts together.” She handed the journal to Clarke and slipped down the hatch.

Clarke dropped the book on the grounder’s satchel. “I’m coming too,” She insisted.

“You can’t.” Raven blocked her exit. “The Ark is still up there and that won’t wait,” She looked over her shoulder at Bellamy, her expression apologetic but determined. “You said ‘bigger than one person’.”

“Then get it working.” Raven hesitated and Clarke pointed to the radio. “Raven, fix it.”

“Look after her.” Bellamy said, eyes on Octavia. His face was so broken Clarke wanted to scream

“If he wakes up I’ll get him to talk.” She touched his elbow, drawing Bellamy’s attention back to her and what needed to be done.  He put his hand over hers, squeezing for a brief moment. “I won’t let he die.” She promised without daring to wonder what would happen if she couldn’t manage it.

He nodded, giving his sister one last look before he slipped away.

“Murphy,” Clarke turned away as Bellamy headed for the ladder. “Miller; Keep the camp calm and double the watch. Make sure no one’s coming after him.” She waved at the grounder. They nodded and vanished after Bellamy. “Raven?”

“I’ve got the connection up,” She said from the makeshift lab. “Just trying to get the right frequency.”

“Keep an eye on Octavia,” Clarke told Monty, heading over to Raven. She dropped on to a crate and rubbed her forehead with her hands for a moment.

“Hey,” Raven jabbed her with the business end of a screwdriver. “Focus.”

Clarke glared, balefully up at Raven through her fingers for a moment, and then straightened with a sigh. “Hurry up and save the world, huh?”

“Yeah,” She stuck the radio under Clarke’s nose. “Get a fucking move on.”

There was a snap and the quality of the static changed. Clarke swallowed and took a deep breath.

“Attention Ark Station; this is Clarke Griffin,

“You may not know me, but you need to know the truth. The Council has lied to you. The Skybox isn’t under quarantine, it’s empty. They sent your children to the ground, 

“They did it because they’re desperate. The Ark is running out of air. The council kept information secret; instead of finding a solution they’re fighting each other for control. Diana Sydney tried to have Chancellor Jaha assassinated, and it won’t end there. They are planning to kill more people, unless you stop them.  

“You have a choice. I’m standing right now on the surface of the planet that we were born to call home and I am telling you that it is survivable.” She wondered if her mother was listening. If Bellamy’s mother was listening; if Aurora was thrilled that her children were alive, not knowing that one of them was slowly dying behind Clarke while the other risked his life to save her. “The ground is dangerous but it’s here and so are we. And we’re not listening to the council anymore.

“We’ll watch the sky for you. May we meet again.”

Clarke switched off the radio and dropped it to the bench in front of Raven. The girl picked it up and spun it in her fingers before offering Clarke a smile.  “You did good.”

She laughed weakly. “I may have killed everyone on the Ark.”

Raven shook her head. “Clarke.” Wells called. He had a gun propped shakily up on one leg, that Clarke recognized as Miller’s and he was pointing it at the grounder, who was not moving like someone just regaining consciousness.    

“I guess you were listening,” He wasn’t paying her any attention; his eyes were fixed on Octavia pale face. Clarke stormed over and snapped her fingers an inch from the end of his nose. “I know you speak English, dickhead. That game was over when you tried to stop her.”

He set his jaw, blowing a long breath out his nose.

“If she dies because of this, we will kill you.” She assured him; glancing at Raven as she paced over, holding a long screwdriver threateningly. “And I promise it won’t be quick.”

Clarke snatched up the discarded journal, paging through it to the knife drawing. “Is this the antidote?” She held it up to him, tapping the symbol Roma had chosen. “I’ve sent the others to your cave. Is this there?”

The man said nothing.

“Clarke she’s seizing!” Wells called.

Monty was struggling to turn Octavia onto her side as she jerked and spasmed. Raven threw the screwdriver away and bent to help, easing Wells back and trying to keep Octavia from hurting herself.

Clarke rounded on the bound man. “Tell me the antidote.”

He dropped his head, trying to turn away but Clarke grabbed his chin, forcing his head back up. “Watch!” She shouted, “You give it to me or you fucking watch her die with us!”  

He looked between her and Octavia for a long moment, waging some internal war before he finally jerked his head to the side, indicating his hip. “Pocket.”

“Oh for fucks sake,” Clarke let go of his face, scrambling through his pockets. “Of course we didn’t search him.” She emerged triumphant with a tiny vial bearing the symbol on its cork. “All of it?”

The grounder nodded jerkily. Without being asked, Raven shifted to hold Octavia’s head still while Clarke fed her the yellow liquid, slowly rubbing at her throat to make her swallow. They watched anxiously as the shaking subsided, then stopped entirely. Octavia took a full breath as her muscles relaxed.  “It worked.” Raven breathed

Clarke smoothed Octavia’s hair back. “We need to send someone after Bellamy and the others. Monty -”

“Your people are lost already.”

They all jerked around to face the grounder.  “What?” Raven demanded, her voice low and dangerous.

“The Trikru will know I’m gone. They’ll be waiting.”

Clarke felt her blood turn to ice. “How do I stop them?”

He shook his head. “You can’t.”

Clarke crossed the room in two strides and slammed him backwards, pinning him against the dropship wall with her forearm braced on his neck. “In case you didn’t get it, I probably condemned two thousand people to death tonight. I am not losing anyone else. Tell me how to save them!”

The grounder kept his face blank but his eyes flicked towards his bag. So close to him, Clark couldn’t miss the involuntary tell. “Raven, what’s in the bag?”

“You saw what’s in the bag; the book, that horn, food, poisons,” Raven rattled off the list dismissively. “Clarke we have to do something!”

“The horn,” Clarke stared the grounder down. “When we saw the acid fog we heard a horn. Was that you?” Raven snatched up the carved instrument and blew into it. The sound it produced was low, sonorous and familiar. “It’s a warning.” And anyone with half a brain would run from the sound that meant acid fog.

“Watch Octavia. Don’t let that fucker out!” Clarke took the horn from Raven’s hands and swung her way down the ladder in one smooth motion.

 

* * *

 

Clarke knew she was in the right place because of the screaming. She could hear her Saints shouting back and forth to one another, Jasper roaring defiance to the trees. Clarke picked up her pace, missing her long abandoned torch as she tripped over tree roots in the faint, pre-dawn light.

She couldn’t risk calling out to them. There was every chance the grounders already knew she was here.

“Form up,” That was Bellamy. “Where’s Sahil?”

“I see him!”

“Wait, Roma!” Flickering torches appeared between the trees, bobbing like fireflies. One pulled out ahead, swerving in Clarke’s direction. She broke into a sprint, turning so that their paths would intersect. Roma appeared, close by between the trees just as Clarke missed her footing and went down hard, half sprawled over a fallen log.

It was only because of the angle at which she’d fallen that she saw the figure drop from the trees. Torch-less, he moved like a wraith through the grey-lit woods; and in his hand, Clarke could see the outline of a spear being leveled at Roma.

“Roma.” the name came out as barely a ragged breath, but the sound of the shot Clark fired at the grounder as he took aim was much louder.

Her bullet went wide, splintering the side of a tree but Roma had lived eighteen years on the Ark and she knew to duck at the sound of gunshots. The spear hit the tree where she’d been standing.

“Roma!” This time Clarke’s yell was stronger and her aim more true. The grounder dodged away through the forest and Roma scrambled for Clarke. They collided as she dove over the fallen log, still trying to stay low. Clarke pushed her out of view, watching the trees as she put the horn to her lips and blew.  

The warning note filled the woods, echoing and deep. Clarke dropped to the ground, rolling after Roma into the gap where the fallen tree was rotting away. She blew the horn again and there was the sound of shouting in the same guttural tongue their captive had used.

Roma reached around her and batted the horn away, covering Clarkes mouth and hauling her further beneath the tree until they were pressed together, shoulder to ankle in the narrow space that smelled of earth and wood rot

A boot landed, barely inches away and Clarke could feel Roma holding her breath.

The grounder didn’t stop, running until they disappeared into the shadows of the forest and the sound of their shouting faded. Clarke counted slowly in rhythm with her breathing, her mouth shaping the words against Roma’s palm.  

At five hundred she pulled herself out from underneath the tree to find the forest silent.

Roma was shaking as she levered herself out. There were sticks in her hair and her face was streaked with dirt and tears, but her grip was strong when she took Clarke’s hand and her voice stayed steady.

“Good timing.”

Clarke pulled Roma to her feet and wrapped her arms around the girl for a moment. “Got your back.” 

 

* * *

 

There was no sign of Bellamy or the scouting party.

It wasn’t until the sun rose enough to light the dense forest that Roma caught sight of the orange fabric peeking out of the underbrush. She motioned Clarke over silently, afraid of disturbing any grounders who might still be nearby.

The material was definitely part of the parachute that had come off the dropship, but there was nothing else around it. They approached carefully. Wary of traps the grounders might have been setting.

Clarke gestured for Roma to step back and cover her, and reached out to whip the cloth back. Just as her fingers touched the fabric it was yanked away and Bellamy leapt up, barreling forward like a charging animal. Clarke fell backwards instinctively, lifting her feet so she could plant them against his torso and use his own momentum to flip him over. Bellamy twisted as he fell, going for his gun or a knife, Clarke wasn’t sure, so she fisted her hands into his shirt and let the flip become a roll, landing hard, straddling his stomach and struggling to pin his hands before he could lash out.

“Bellamy!”

“Princess?” He looked up at her for a moment, dazed and uncomprehending, then his expression hardened into terror. “Octavia?”

“She’s okay,” Clarke said quickly. “The grounder had the antidote. She’s okay.”

“Okay?” He repeated the word to himself, his face relaxing into a blinding grin. Bellamy reached up and yanked her down into a fierce hug.

Above them Roma and Jasper were laughing in the bright morning sunlight and everyone was alive.

“Thank you Clarke,” Bellamy said into her ear. “Thank you.”

 

* * *

 


End file.
